THE Pension Reform Task Team set up by the Federal government, has uncovered no fewer than 71, 133 ghost pensioners under the government payroll across the country.

Chairman of the Team, Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, who announced this, lamented that some faceless individuals had been threatening the lives of members of the team over the assignment given to them and called on security agencies to provide security for them.

Pensioners during a verification exercise.

Speaking during a visit to the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, the Pension Reform Task Team Chairman disclosed that so far a whooping N151 billion fraud had been uncovered with the assistance of the EFCC in pension offices across the country.

According to Alhaji Maina “of the N151 billion, the task team in conjunction with the EFCC traced and recovered a total of about N24billion and N15 billion worth of property from some corrupt government officials in the Office of the Head of Service Pension Department. Sixty six illegal bank accounts with N180million were also discovered.”

He expressed appreciation to the EFCC for its role in achieving the feat and decried the plight of pensioners before his team was inaugurated in June 2010, noting that such plight was brought about not by paucity of funds “but due to large scale corruption through diversion and mismanagement of pension fund, manipulation and falsification of data, non-improvement in the pension administrative structure, bureaucracy with poor, unreliable and inefficient accounting system.”

He noted that in a bid to check such anomalies, his team had successfully conducted nationwide biometric verification of pensioners and in the process detected 71, 133 fake pensioners.

He sought the EFCC’s assistance in the areas of personnel and security of lives of his team “because we are increasingly getting threats to our lives from some faceless members of the public”.

He also appealed to the EFCC to continuously be on the watch of pension offices across the country to find out if any scam or shadiness was being perpetrated.

Responding, Lamorde expressed the Commission’s appreciation on the robust relationship existing between the two organizations which he stressed should be emulated by other agencies. “We must all join hands to fight this cankerworm called corruption.”

He lauded the task force on some of its initiatives especially the biometric capturing of pensioners.

This, he said, would go a long way in detecting pension fraud across the country.

Lamorde pledged to support the Task Force with manpower even as he welcomed the portal to be dedicated to the Commission in the Task Force’s website, which is aimed at detecting fraudulent transactions.

Reacting to the threat to life of members of the Task Force by those who are affected by their activities, the EFCC helmsman advised the team not to be deterred by any threat to life in the discharge of their duties “because risk element is real in life”.

www.vanguardngr.com/2012/01/pension-reforms-task-team-uncovers-71133-ghost-pensioners/

Corruption, the virus that knows no bound in Naija.

Can anyone explain why it has been soo difficult to erase the ghost workers? Isnt it as simple as taking attendance in the office and noting roles?
Or having civil servants take social security numbers
Or firing everybody and letting them reapply for their jobs?
Its like every little issue is difficult to tackle in that country i will never understand it?

Haaaaa!!!! Kilode!!!! Nigeriyaa!!! Its all government fault, where there is no database of citizen many things will go wrong. Imagine if USA have no database of her citizen? The whole mexico or latin will claim they are yankee citizen.

The funniest thing be say na the people when dey incharge go dey take that money. All they have to do is just to create fake profiles and claim they pay money to thise fake profiles, Make we hear word shey na today, Person wen dey work no dey see salary collect finish na person wen no even dey exist dey collect am, Make EFCC go to the people in charge cos na them dey do that runzz!!

Ghost BH on the way

And all the money that would have been lost will run into billions of naira.Corruption! Ah

how many roles are efcc going to take up, what about police?. I hope efcc are not going to be bug down with more than they can chew. government need to get the police cracking in order to complement the efcc role instead of molesting people on the road

miracle4:

According to Alhaji Maina “of the N151 billion, the task team in conjunction with the EFCC traced and recovered a total of about N24billion and N15 billion worth of property from some corrupt government officials in the Office of the Head of Service Pension Department. Sixty six illegal bank accounts with N180million were also discovered.”

Bunch of fcking ediots!

So why are we not hearing of any arrests?

Useless, incompetent foooooooooooools!

He noted that in a bid to check such anomalies, his team had successfully conducted nationwide biometric verification of pensioners and in the process detected 71, 133 fake pensioners.

[size=14pt]Biometrics [/size] is the only way to get our hoards of unwashed scam artists.

That is what i have telling you people - every phocking Nigerian is corrupt

Please don't believe everything you read in the papers. This is a man who was asked to hand-over a schedule that was surreptitiously given to him to handle for a time period, he then choose to use the press with a black mail tactic because the billions left to his management and use that has been siphoned cannot be accounted for. Now how on earth can Maina tell us that a whooping N151billion was stolen in a government office, is it that these guys just ate the whole money without making any payment to pensioners? From what period to when are we talking about here and where is the evidence that the Accountant-General's office released such amount of money within that period? Where are the evidence of remittance of the funds claimed to be recovered and the properties too. i blame our journalist who do not carry out investigations to confirm claims by individual thereby ending up doing the bidding of anyone who has the political power and money to sell their stories. Guys don't be fooled by this cheap black mail of a man who is afraid to be probed and wish to remain in a place because he has political covering from the presidency. Ask pensioners if you have one then you will have an idea of what i am talking about. From non-payment of their pension to outrageous payment for instance, from 60k to like 6k monthly for a retired deputy director. Where did they discover 71k plus ghost pensioners while there are so many pensioners languishing in penury for non payment of their pensions. I believe he must have made some of these discoveries as he claims but they are obviously blown out of proportion. If he has no skeleton in his closet why is he afraid to hand-over the schedule. Guys be wise in you analysis of issues.

I begin to imagine if their is any govt parastatal without high lever corruption. What is the problem with Nigeria and her rulers or people at the Top? God save your dear country, Nigeria. Amen

to show us that this committee is working or serious,let them back up all their claims with arrest of some individuals who were involved in this mess

Kai, naija is filled with ghosts.

Presidential food to cost N1.0b/yr ----That is a ghost food.

Nigeria consumes 59m litres of fuel/day -----ghost fuel

Govt claims it pays subsidy on fuel  but others said no subsidy in the first place------Ghost fuel subsidy

Boko Haram and its  sponsors are faceless ------ghost sponsors

Legislators collect billions of naira for constituency development, yet no development----ghost developers

Some "untouchable" cabals are in the oil industry milkiing the country dry ----ghost importers

Some prosperity pastors preach prosperity to enrich themselves ----ghost prosperity for the members

Health for all by the year 2000. We never see any o ------ghost health scheme

Housing for all by the year 2000. Many citizens are still living under Eko bridges----ghost housing.

Vision 2010 will make life comfortable for nigerians. Year 2010 don pass, no show ----ghost vision

Our leaders promise heaven on earth during elections but when they get there, the people are forgotten-------ghost leaders                 Etc etc etc etc


May God save Nigeria from the pangs of the ghost.