Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, on Tuesday said his team was currently on the trail of about N3.3trn stolen pension fund that cut across different government agencies.
He said his team does not have confidence in the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service, State and Local Government Administration currently probing pension administration in the country.
Maina made this known to journalists in Abuja in the wake of his face-off with the members of the committee, who had earlier issued a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear before them to answer questions relating to pension fund administration.
Justifying his decision not to appear before the committee, he said he had on October 10, 2012 written a letter of protest to the President of the Senate, David Mark, based on the “glaring persecution” being exhibited by the committee towards his team.
Maina said contrary to the impression being credited by the committee that his team was mismanaging pension funds, he had so far recovered about N241bn pension fund to the nation's purse, conducted biometrics capturing for over 170,000 pensioners and deleted 73,000 ghost pensioners from the civil service list.
“The committee members are unfair to us because they have taken sides with the cabal against those of us that are fighting the corruption in the system. That is why I wrote a protest letter to the Senate President to complain how the committee is biased.
“They don't allow us to answer questions because they will insist on 'yes' or 'no' as answer and that is unfair,” he said.
Though Maina refused to disclose the agencies or individuals involved in the N3.3trn pension fund in order not to jeopardise investigation, he said work had reached an advanced stage on the matter and details would be made public upon conclusion.
Meanwhile, the Senate Joint Committee on Pensions Investigations has said powerful forces are behind Maina, shielding him against proper investigations by the Senate.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Aloysius Etok, while speaking to reporters on Tuesday, said the backing Maina receives from high places was fanning his arrogance.
Etok also denied being compromised or biased against Maina, arguing that his committee had been fair to those who appeared before it during the investigations.
He said, “I suspect he has godfathers backing him because no ordinary Nigerian will be so arrogant and exhibit such level of exuberance without some backers, not minding the laws of the land or the civil service rules.”
