A pension advocacy group, Pensioners Rights Protection Advocacy, PRPA, has faulted the suspension of the Director General of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, Mrs Nellie Mayshak.
PRPA said the cabal in the pension administration sector that had always thwarted every effort by government to sanitize the industry, was behind Mayshak’s ordeal.
Mayshak’s suspension was announced by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, for alleged administrative infractions and the need to look into the books of the agency.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Executive Director of the PRPA, Mr Sule Adams, he said contrary to the alleged N60 million monthly salary, the DG earned a consolidated salary of N43 million naira per annum, “which is about the least in the public financial sector and other related agencies like CBN, NNPC, PTDF, PPPRA, PENCOM amongst others.
“The salary structure of PTAD is not a creation of any individual or the agency itself but that of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.”
PRPA noted that Mayshak could not have run the agency like a sole administrator, because the statue that set up PTAD stipulates that the DG should report to the ministry of finance.
It wondered how a multi-billion naira fraud would be committed when payment and monthly payroll of pensioners are submitted to the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, including rendering of monthly returns to the Pension Commission, PENCOM.
Continuing he said, “Since November 2013, when PTAD effectively took over the payment of pensioners, payments are made via the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to beneficiaries’ accounts, using the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, GIFMIS.
“The payments are tracked through the banks to be sure that every pensioner receives their entitlements immediately they are paid.
“Is the minister and the nation aware that PTAD has made savings of N7 billion by blocking over 5000 parastatals and agencies’ ghost pensioners in the last five months?
“Is the minister equally briefed that PTAD has handed over 121 pension fraudsters to the ICPC for investigation in the last one year?
“It is curious that the Minister of Finance would just hurriedly suspend her indefinitely without first subjecting such allegations to serious scrutiny”.
PRPA said it was unfortunate that some Nigerians “love to pull down their brightest brains”, adding that Mayshak had a distinguished career before taking the PTAD.”
“We call on the Minister of Finance to see through the gang up against this hardworking Nigerian by carrying out a thorough and unbiased investigation into the allegations,” the statement concluded. .
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