A management consultant, Ngozika Ihuoma who was also a first defence witness (DW1) Monday, told the Federal High Court, Abuja, how Abdulrasheed Maina, uncovered monumental fraud as Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) boss.
Ihuoma, a management consultant, whose firm, Crincad & Cari Nigeria Ltd was contracted by the PRTT for consultancy service, told Justice Okon Abang.
Maina is opening his defence as ordered by the trial judge at the last sitting in the charge preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after the prosecution closed its case.
Maina (1st defendant) was arraigned before Abang, on October 25, 2019, by the EFCC alongside his firm, Common Input Property and Investment Ltd (2nd defendant).
He, however, pleaded not guilty to the 12-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N2 billion.
Ihuoma, while being led in evidence-in-chief by Anayo Adibe, counsel to Maina, told the court that Maina was appointed to chair the PRTT by President Goodluck Jonathan-led government following his (Maina’s) achievement in pensioners biometric capture exercise he conducted at Customs, Immigration, Prison Pension Office (CIPO), Gwagwalada, FCT.
“In 2010, precisely May 6, 2010, there was a change of government that brought in President Goodluck Jonathan, the then acting President, as the substantive president following the death of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
“One of his agenda then was to ensure pension reform which was a thorny issue to pensioners then.
“Anybody that lived in Abuja, especially within the Wuse axis and Federal Secretariat would feel sorry and disappointed with the way past government maltreated pensioners at their old age.
“The last pensioners verification exercise conducted in May 2010 under Chief Steve Oronsaye as Head of Service (HoS) with EFCC monitoring the exercise through their SERVICOM Unit, revealed monumental fraud.
“One of it was that a bank, FCMB, in their Abeokuta Branch in Ogun State, opened 555 accounts for one person and that individual in question was never a pensioner.
“These and other issues led the SERVICOM Unit of EFCC into writing an interim report to the then HoS and made recommendations on the way forward,” he narrated.
The witness said after a stakeholders’ meeting, which included the pensioners’ union, administrators, the National Pension Commission, etc, conducted by Oronsaye, they decided to adopt the biometric capture exercise used at CIPO.
“So the 1st defendant (Maina) was invited to head the task team,” he said.
He said members of the team were drawn from “CIPO, ICPC, DSS, NIA, Office of the Accountant General of Federation, Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, Public Complaint Commission and EFCC.”
The witness said the EFCC, as an anti-corruption agency, was part of the PRTT on an institutional capacity.
“The task team embarked on a verification exercise in view of the EFCC interim report by the SERVICOM Unit that had uncovered monumental fraud by ghost pensioners,” he said.
He said the biometric capture exercise took place in two trenches; the first was in 36 states and FCT and the second was pensioners in diaspora.
“In diaspora, we have about 6 centres; one in Washington, Atlanta, United Kingdom, South Africa, Ghana and New York,” he said.
Ihuoma said that at the end of the exercise, the PRTT discovered 71, 320 ghost pensioners in government payroll and 73, 000 accounts were opened for ghost pensioners by the various banks in the country.
He said before this time, the Budget Office of the Federation usually received demand for 285, 000 pensioners annually with a monthly pension of N5 billion released to the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation for monthly payment of pensioners.
“And as at May 2010, prior to the establishment of the task team, the whole N5 billion was being paid out by the banks,” he said.
He, however, said with the conclusion of the biometric capture and 71, 320 ghost pensioners removed, the Federal Government’s monthly expenses dropped to N1.3 billion from N5 billion.
He said with this development, additional 50, 000 pensioners, including those who had retired as far back as 1968 but who had never been on the payroll as a result of corruption, were brought into the system.
The witness explained that this jerked up the monthly payment to N1.7 billion instead of the earlier N1.3 billion.
The witness told the court that “in all, by Nov. 2011, the task team had recovered cash of N181 billion which was warehoused at the CBN by EFCC and ICPC.”
He said for those charged to court, order was made by court for interim forfeiture of assets and cash.
“In March 2011, the court had asked EFCC and ICPC and the task team to take custody of the assets and cash valued at N1.63 trillion,” he said.
Justice Abang has since adjourned the matter till March 2 for trial continuation.
