The House of Representatives Committee on Pension on has commenced investigation into petitions against two Pension Funds Administrators; Aiico Pension Managers and Fidelity Pension, over alleged mismanagement of contributors’ funds.
The committee, led by Hon. Kabir Alhassan Rurum on Thursday, however refused to take presentation from representatives of the concerned PFAs, directing that their respective Chief Executive Officers must appear in persons.
“The committee has the constitutional rights and mandate to invite anybody in the pension industry to come and explain issues of public importance. And we didn’t summon them, we only invited them to come because the Pension Reform Act of 2014 has given us the right to do so.
“Moreover, there is a lot of complaints and counter complaints against Aiico and Fidelity Pension, and based on that they were invited, but unfortunately, the Managing Directors or Chief Executive Officers of the two important agency refused to come.
“Based on that, the committee decided that they appear in person. We are going to give them a date where we are going to mandate the two Managing Directors to appear in person”, Rurum told journalists after the hearing session was adjourned indefinitely.
Earlier, the Regional Manager of Aiico Pension, Temitope Ajegboje, informed the lawmakers that they got the invite on Friday and his MD wanted to come, until yesterday when he had a medical emergency and became indisposed, and sent his undeserved apologies.
A member of the committee, Chudi Momah observed that even if the MD wasn’t going to be present, it shouldn’t have been the Regional Manager that should represent him, more so that there was no written authorisation empowering him to answer critical questions from the committee.
Responding after listening to several other observations from his colleagues, Rurum said: “We can’t be asking MDs and CEOs of organizations like these to tell us what’s happening to tax payers money under their care and they will be sending representatives”.
