The Pension Reform Task Force Team (PRTT) is living up to its promise of recovering all missing pension funds, saying that as at 2012, it recovered N221bn of the funds stolen by those who handled the scheme in 2012.
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The Federal Government initially reserved the funds for the payment of pensions of its retirees prior to the coming of the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Aside the N221bn, the PRTT disclosed that it confiscated 281 property from officials of the pension scheme.
According to the Information and Media Relations Officer of PRTT, Mr. Hassan Salihu “their recovery from pension thieves last year was about N221bn. Some of the recoveries were evidence of what government should have expended on pension. Properties were also recovered,”
It was said that the PRTT could not ascertain the actual amount of money stolen from the government because the looting had gone on for a very long time.
Abdulrasheed Maina said his administration has recovered over 73,000 ghost pension accounts criminally opened by government officials.
He said they cancelled the accounts and saved billions of naira.
“The PRTT traced and cracked down pension cartels in the entire country, stopped stealing of billions of naira monthly by pension robbers, disallowed further stealing and deleted over 73,000 fake pensioners’ accounts in just two pension offices,” he said.
The National Union of Pensioners had reported to the Senate Committee on Establishment on Public Service Matters and Management of Pension Funds that the main pensioners were not paid while ghost pensioners were receiving the stipends.
