Abdulrasheed Maina is the Chairman of the Presidential Pension Reform Task Team, which was set up under the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, with the mandate to restructure the pension system in Nigeria. With the mandate to ensure that pensioners who have served the nation are no longer denied a meaningful life in old age, the Task Team has set out to sanitise the system. In this interview with ABOSEDE MUSARI, Maina opens up on the findings of the task team so far, the rot in the system and some of the most shocking experiences the team has had, while also revealing how an average of N295 million to N300 million was being pilfered every other day through cheques and cash from the Police Pension Account.WHAT is your mandate at the Pension Reform Task Team'The Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) was created out of the desire of government to ensure the pension system in Nigeria is working and that there is robust database that will encompass biometric credentials and bio-data of all Nigerian pensioners so that the issue of pensioners not being paid as used to be the case, is eliminated.Because of such issues, the federal government, through the Head of Service, created this Pension Reform Task Team to, among other things, place the pension department under the office of the Head of Service of the Federation, capture biometrics of all pensioners, identify and remove fake pensioners, remove those pensioners that do not belong to the Head of Service, identify leakages and block them, mop up excess funds and ensure that all those who have not been paid their arrears and benefits are paid. That was the beginning of Pension Reform Task Team.What is the scope of your assignment'The assignment started at the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office (CIPPO), where we developed a model that ensured pensioners are paid between 20th and 25th of every month; and that has been on record for all the time that we've been there. Also, we were able to cut down the payment processes from 26 to about five.We are talking about a situation where the pensioner's file is brought from the service; the pensioner retires from the Prison Service and his file is forwarded to Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office. Between that time and when he is paid, we ensure we cut down the processes and time frame from the hitherto one month to 48 hours. As a result, we were asked to replicate that model at the Head of Service and were also asked to go into the Police Pension Office to restructure, and asked to go to the other agencies.How many Pension Offices are covered by your mandate'We've worked in four or five agencies I can say.Are you supposed to cover the 42 agencies'We have 42 pension offices in the country under the old Pay As You Go. These include pension schemes under the parastatals. We've not been able to go into the other 39. Until federal government says go into these areas, we will not just go. Usually you are asked to go into a place and then you go. So until government says we should go then the Task Team will now move into those offices.What have been your findings, based on the offices where you've worked'We don't go into an office for any findings. We go to restructure the office. Restructuring means you look at their processes and ensure they have a seamless payment system where pensioners don't have to be subjected to hardships they used to go through in order to collect their pension. So in trying to restructure the offices, we have to change the work flow process, how people perceive pensioners from being pests to being customers. In trying to do that and checking the books and records, we found that they had made those offices goldmines and so we had to block those leakages.The task team comprises of officers from different agencies. Each agency is represented. Each agency will now go in and do their job. We have representatives from ICPC, EFCC, SSS, Attorney General of the Federation and so on. So when we see leakages, we have to block them and inform the government accordingly and recommend such funds to be mopped.Under the Office of the Head of Service, I think about 32 people were charged to court and several billions of naira in cash and in properties were seized from them.The Task team has worked for 19 months so far. Do you have a time frame to finish your assignment'When we went into the Office of the Head of Service, we never expected to see the mess that we found. We thought it was just a thing that you go in and clear the place in six months and go. No, we went in and found a situation that had been there for over 50 years, a situation of 44 years or so. You know when you have a system that has been there for over 40 years, and you come in and think you will change it in six months. It is not going to be possible. So it took us a long time to be able to understand the dynamics of how they operate in that office. We were expecting to see three, four, five, six accounts but we realised 66 accounts and this broadens your job, your scope and then you start hunting from here to there.Also you now go in between certain offices, budget office and different offices. Especially when we found under-aged people on the payroll. We found out that we had primary and secondary school teachers on the payroll. We also found out that we had so many other agencies that have been given funds for payment of their pensions also receiving pension in the office of the Head of Service. For example, we had people collecting pensions under Plateau State, under University of Jos and also under the Head of Service office.We found people collecting pension under the Head of Service and under Railway Corporation; from Head of Service and Nigeria Airways. We found people collecting pensions under Head of Service and so many government agencies across the country. When we looked at the budget for pensions under the Head of Service under the Pay As You Go, it was so huge- N5 billion a month.When we went out to do the actual biometrics, we found out that out of the N5 billion, the actual was N825 million. We started building the database from there. We came back with 70,657 numbers of genuine pensioners out of 141,790 that they used to pay. This is almost 50 per cent. So, from N5 billion we came down to N825 million. Aside from this, we have captured additional 50,000 pensioners now; these are mostly people who have never received pension in their lives. They have retired, some for over 35 to 40 years. We've also been able to capture state pensioners with federal share.What does that mean'It means there are state pensioners that are qualified for federal share, based on the law; which is 1972 to 1976. Government pays those set of pensioners. They retired working for state governments but the federal pays them because they have what we call federal share. Government brought them on board.It is no longer business as usual. So we have told those that collect from UNIJOS to go back to the University of Jos, we have asked all the judges that hitherto collect from federal to go back to the National Judicial Council (NJC), those that collect from Nigeria Railways, we removed their names and forwarded them back to Nigeria Railways and so on.So we now have a collection of so many agencies that are saying why did you send these people back to us, because they've been enjoying those funds. The Pension Reform Task Team is only ensuring that every Nigerian pensioner is paid what is due to him. They've given this country their youthful lives and we need to pay them. Two, I can guarantee you that if Nigerians are guaranteed their pension; people will not start looking for money here and there. Nobody will start stealing government money, corruption will go down drastically.That's what we are doing, to ensure that people receive their pension as at when due. And if you have heard about any complaint on pensions, it is not from federal pensioners. If any federal pensioner complains now, it means either he wasn't around and wasn't captured in the biometrics and did not go for the biometrics in the Diaspora. Or maybe he was in his village; because we had a group called mobile team. They go round the hospitals and the homes of those that were sick to capture their biometrics. When we came back, we had 115,000 pensioners. Apart from the 70,657, we captured about 45,000 to 50,000 and the total became 115,000.Those that have been on the payroll were 70,156. The new pensioners that have never received pension that we brought on board were 50,000. We have been able to pay them all their arrears and gratuity since they retired. We still have skirmishes of complaints here and there and whenever we have them, we assure that our system will process it within 24 hours.In your 19 months of working with this team, what are the most shocking things you have discovered'The most shocking thing is not only one issue. One of them was when somebody tried to bribe the Task Team to hands off with huge sums of money. Secondly, when some people tried to assassinate members of the Task Team. Thirdly, when we realised that the quantum of money some people steal in a month is equal to the salary of a state government. That actually shocked us because we felt that is cruel and greedy for some people to take such magnitude of money. People have stolen a lot of money. We didn't set out to go and look for people who have stolen money. No, we went out to restructure the system and in restructuring the system, we found these things out.How many ghost pensioners have you discovered so far'It depends on which office you are asking of. We have different offices. For the Head of Service, we have over 71,000 ghost workers. I have given the senate committee a Ghana Must Go bag full of fake pensioners' forms and their pictures. They signed and acknowledged receipt. It is there.For Police Pension Office, we were given three months to go in there and restructure, but we were asked to stop in the middle of the exercise. When we went in to restructure police pension on June 9, to last till September 9, we were asked to ensure that the office is well restructured, to establish a seamless e-payment platform, we were also asked to ensure that pensioners that are not well placed are placed. These are the things that we found out: we found out that police pensioners are under-paid, that police pension office went to Lagos and opened two accounts with a bank and one account had a balance of N8.9 billion, the other one had a balance of over N10 billion.When we looked at the bank statements, an average of N295 million to N300 million was being removed every other day by cheque and cash in the era of e-payment. So, what would you do if you were asked to go and restructure such office' First thing is to block those accounts so that government funds will not be stolen. We did that and we wrote a letter to the Accountant General of the Federation to say that we needed to open two accounts because we have realised that there are some problems in Lagos in that bank where the two accounts were held.The Accountant General gave us approval to open two accounts, one in UBA and the other in Fidelity Bank. We sat down as a task team, held a meeting and agreed that what weneeded to do was for us to safeguard government money from being stolen was to ask them to close the Lagos accounts because it was contrary to the financial regulation Section 701 sub section 3.The Accountant General granted this approval and we opened the accounts in Fidelity and UBA. We also went into the Police Pension Office and brought all the pensioners' files into the office where we worked and realised that the office was owing pensioners to the tune of N3.4 billion and they had asked government to give them N24 billion to pay this N3.4 billion. They told government that they had liability of N24 billion and government released that N24 billion, not knowing that the liability was actually N3.5 billion.We decided to open one account to deposit the N3.4 billion and for the other account, we mopped up all the money in all the different accounts, because we found there were so many accounts in different banks. You will see this account with N3 billion that has been sitting for two years, another with N1 billion sitting for one year and so on. The task team met and decided to move the N3.4 billion liability which is the money that has to be paid to pensioners into UBA and then go to all these banks, mop all the money into Fidelity; then write a single e-payment back to the treasury.At that time we had about N28 billion we wanted to write in e-payment back to the treasury. By the time we started moving all the funds into Fidelity, we moved about N8 billion, then we received a letter from the former Head of Service to stop the restructuring. And I know maybe some of the banks must have called to say certain things.So we stopped and went to the Minister of Finance, just like she indicated at the hearing, and she told the senate committee that when I told her my findings just like I told you; she sent KPMG to go to Police Pension and KPMG brought a report confirming to her what I had told her. She said this also at theSenate hearing. Now we wanted to move all these funds into this account so that we can move the money back to government. They did not allow us to do that and later they said we should stop the restructuring.Which Head of Service are you referring to'Oladapo Afolabi, the immediate past Head of Service. So we ran to the Minister of Finance who wrote a letter freezing all the accounts and we were very happy. From that day, all the accounts have been frozen. Since September nobody has had access to those accounts. Not even the task team. You see that government funds have been safeguarded.Now people started shouting that why are we doing this' We said look, we are doing this because we also want to be sure of our pension when we retire. The Minister of Finance is somebody that is very forthright and the President has the interest of this country at heart and wants to develop it. But without funds how can he develop the country. You can only develop a place when you have funds to do it. But when people are now taking the funds and hiding them, how can he develop the country' What we are trying to do is get the excess funds, block the leakages so that government can use them.Concerning the KPMG, what are they supposed to do for you, what is happening'I'm just seeing the newspaper (not The Guardian) saying that 'KPMG for Rescue job'. We don't work with KPMG and we've never worked with KPMG. We have not received any letter from anybody asking us to work with KPMG. In the past, the Minister of Finance had asked us to give them certain information, but we have never been in a working team with them. No, we have never.So you've not discovered any ghost pensioners from Police Pension Office'We discovered ghost pensioners and duplicates. We discovered duplicated names of about 133, and 2,014 ghost workers. We have removed them. However, we still have police pensioners who have not been paid because we had not finished our job when we were asked to stop. And we have already developed a system called the new e-pension management system. We have not finished our job because so many pensioners are not yet captured in the police pension office.Going by your experience so far, do you really think that pension fraud can be stopped in Nigeria'If we are straightforward with our probe, yes we can. If we stop chasing the cockroach and start chasing the elephant, yes we can.What's the complicity of civilians and police in the Police Pension Office'There are people that have been arrested and I'm sure there'll be more things coming up. I wouldn't want to say anything because I wouldn't want to jeopardise on-going investigations. I will not talk much on some sensitive areas especially pension office because it is pre-judicial. It's in the court.You were also recently accused of defrauding the system. What's your reaction to that'Let me tell you this, here is a group that brought in N151 billion. We are not talking about millions, we are talking about billions. And here someone is asking me on the paper, how did you spend N140 million to get N151 billion. How does that sound to you' Nigerians are not stupid. Okay, if I had spent N10 billion to get N151 billion, won't you clap for me' Of course you'll still clap for me. You are asking me to tell you how I spent N140 million to get N151 billion when you know that definitely people have travelled abroad or within the country.If someone is traveling to Lagos, you have to pay him duty tour allowance. We have 484 people who traveled to various states. You have to pay them their duty tour, transport, local running allowances. You have to also give them money for some other logistics because you cannot go and keep a pensioner under the sun. It is not business as usual.Let me tell you this; let's stop chasing the cockroach when we have the elephant inside there destroying us. Come on, we are not stupid. Mr. President has delivered on pension under his Transformation Agenda because it has never happened under any administration that people no longer die inside the office of the Head of Service. You are a journalist, you must have gone to the office of Head of Service and see those people living under the staircases. They lived under staircases, broken down trucks, and trees for years and nobody looked their way. But now, here is a government that says no, enough is enough.If you go back to the budgets in the previous years, you will see government spending between N200 million to N900 million per pension office for verification exercise. So all these years, nobody is asking questions about all these pension offices that have been spending between N200 million to N900 million on verification and not bringing a kobo. We the Task Team that has brought in N151 billion, you are asking us how did we spend N140 million. That is not straightforward.What are we talking about' Somebody should come out and ask me a question directly, not to be going round behind me. Let me tell you this, Maina never benefited N10 from anybody, nor did my task team. If we had collected the N1.2 billion offered to us to look the other way, we will not be sitting down in this office and somebody will not be asking me of N140 million that was paid to civil servants that travelled. Do you want to say we should not pay civil servants' If it's a company that did the job, how much will you pay that company' If it's a company that brought in that money, you must pay nothing less than 15 per cent.Here you have diligent Nigerians who have been able to save this country from this mess, who have been able to bring 50,000 pensioners who have never been paid, who have been able to clean the system, who have developed an e-pension solution which nobody can change; and somebody is trying to crucify you. They say when you fight corruption, corruption will fight back and that's exactly what you are seeing.Where does the money you have recovered for the country go'The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy was invited by the adhoc Senate committee and she told them these funds have been frozen by her. She is in custody of the funds. Some people are thinking that the task team is in control of the funds. We have never been in control of any funds. The task team has never been in control of funds.If the minister will come and tell you that I have been able to mop out N74 billion of that money into the system will you still question her integrity'In all this, what have been the lessons you've learnt from your experience working on pension reforms'People don't want change in this country. There are people who are bent on ensuring they milk this country dry. And they feel that nobody has the power to change these things. Let me tell you, Mr. President has directed that this system be cleansed, ensuring that leakages are blocked, that corruption is removed from this system to the barest minimum and we are trying to do that.People don't like change. They've been used to taking this money for years and years. Now here is an administration that is saying enough is enough, we need to take this money and put it in areas of development. Mr. President is trying to get us power, education, security and so many other projects. Don't you think he needs a lot of money for that' So why leave this money in the pockets of few people who go outside the country to go and lodge such funds instead of leaving it for government to invest and fund projects'So what's the way forward for Nigeria'The way forward, if we really want to do it is, we have developed a feedback system and this system gives you a reply to your complaint within six hours for pensioners. Right now, the call centre is almost complete. There you will have somebody 24 hours of the day who will talk to you, go into your records based on certain information you will provide. And the person will be able to give you the status of your payment wherever it is.You see you have to give us time to finish the job we are doing, not all these harassment everyday, people asking when we are leaving. You want us to leave so that the status quo will continue' You want to continue stealing money' I don't want to perpetuate myself here, I'm not interested in staying here but let me tell you this, I will fight to the last for the Nigerian pensioner.
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