Maina Speaks on Up on How He Spent N24bn Pension Fund

  • EFCC may summon beneficiaries on funds received.
  • Maina releases documents showing how he spent the fund.

Information eaching us indicates that the embattled former chairman of the Pension Reforms Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina has started speaking up on how he spent the N24 billion handed over to him by the federal government in ten commercial banks to use and pay off millions of its retirees across the world.

Vanguard reports that a top EFCC official conversant with the matter told Vanguard that Maina had started speaking up on how he spent the fund.

It was gathered that some government officials and those who brought Maina to the job shared the money under the guise of going round the world to verify the biometric of Nigerian workers.

READ: DSS Hands Over Maina to EFCC

Documents made available to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) shows that Maina signed off approved expenditures and receipts for overseas and local trips by the Pension Reforms Task Team, with no fewer than 200 top federal government officials captured as ‘beneficiaries’ of traveling allowances for trips they did not embark on.

The documents, which  he is relying on as his evidence of utilizing the huge cash of N24 billion released in 2011 to his team showed that a former Inspector General of Police, Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, (NIA), a Permanent Secretary in the Presidency, a controversial Head of Service of the Federation, Director of Budget of the Federation, two ex-chairmen of the EFCC and ICPC and hordes of officials listed along with their bank details and the amount collected by each for phantom biometric trips.

Maina who was ready to defend the expenditure by calling some or most of the beneficiaries as his witnesses has reportedly denied many of the payments and ownership of most of the houses traced to him.

It was also gathered that the beneficiaries of the funds were aware that Maina’s team had been making payments into their accounts even though they did not make the purported trips. They, however, didn’t summon the courage to reject and return the millions paid into their accounts by the PRTT.

Despite the fact that most of them had since left public service, they might still be summoned to account for the public funds.

READ: Timi Frank Gives Senate Ultimatum on Maina

Meanwhile, Maina’s son who wielded a gun against the DSS team who came to arrest his father has been reportedly handed over to the Nigeria Police Force to prosecute over illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

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