Sunday 19 January 2014

NRC probes alleged fraud in pension office


The Nigerian Railway Corporation has uncovered an alleged fraud in the administration of pension matters in the company.
A source at the Ebute Meta head office of the NRC in Lagos on Sunday said the fraud was to the tune of N270m.
Already, the Managing Director of the corporation, Mr. Adeseyi Sijuwade, has set up a panel to investigate the allegation.
But the NRC boss, who confirmed setting up the panel in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Sunday, said it was a “routine internal check.”
He said the committee was set up to investigate how the pension office had been managed in the last three months.
He said, “It is a regular thing or a routine check by the management. The committee is just to investigate pension management in the last three years.”
Sijuwade, who said no fraud had been established yet, noted that all pension arrears had been settled.
He added that the only pending issue was the harmonisation of the pension rate, in which the retirees were agitating that their pensions must be at par with those of their colleagues in other agencies of the government.
This, he said, was currently awaiting the government’s approval.
The investigation panel headed by the NRC’s Director, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Department, Mr. Fidet Okheria, had commenced sitting, it was learnt.
The man at the centre of the investigation, the Assistant Director, Pensions at the NRC, Mr. Ndubuisi Igbe, said there was no fraud in the pension office.
He told our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday that no pension money was missing, stressing that all railway pensioners were receiving their monthly stipends promptly.
He said, “The payment of the monthly pensions is like paying the workers’ salary; any attempt to delay it will lead to an uproar.
“Besides, no one wants to deny the senior citizens of their pensions, having worked selflessly for the nation. We already have the payment voucher; as soon as the money comes, we make the payment and the books are there for verification.”

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