30 pension board staff in Imo State handed over to DSS for N650m fraud
The Imo State Government has handed over about thirty
Pension Board staff to the Personnel of Directorate of Security Services
(DSS) over monumental fraud dictated in pension cheques amounting to
N650 million naira.
A statement signed by Sam Onwuemeodo, Chief Press Secretary
to Governor Rochas Okorocha, said the Cheques in question are 92 with
some of them Containing N10 million and above.
"And most of the fake Cheques were written in the names of
people who are not Pensioners or who do not exist while some are written
in the names of existing Pensioners who then had three Cheques
or more
but only one having the actual amount they ought to have as their
Pensions while the fake Cheques in their names have amounts ranging from
N10 million and above"
Meanwhile, the government on Monday, August 28, 2017 began
to pay the Pensioners one hundred (100) Percent of their outstanding
Pension arrears with Pensioners from eight Local Governments including
Nkwerre, Ideato South, Njaba, Nwangele, Isu, Obowo, Onuimo and Orsu
being paid that Monday at the Imo International Convention Centre (IICC) Owerri.
The government decided to pay directly to the Pensioners
following the discovery of the mind-blowing fraud in the Pension
Cheques.
Before now, the governor had raised alarm over the steady
rise in Pension bills in the State on monthly basis with the last bill
being N1.59 billion and had done verification upon verification to find
out where the problems lies but all to no avail.
But as God would have it, after writing the Cheques for the
Payment of the outstanding Pension arrears this time, Okorocha demanded
for the whole Cheques written for that Purpose, and for days, he was
personally going through the Cheques with some trusted aides and the
discoveries were shocking.
It was discovered that one person could have three or four
Cheques written in his or her name and most of the names non-Pensioners
and the amounts in the Cheques all in millions, prompting the governor
to summon a meeting after a preliminary investigation with the key
Pension Board Staff in attendance, and Pensioners from the 8 designated
Local Governments for payment.
Before handing over the suspected Pension Board Staff to
Security agents, the governor said the blood of pensioners who had died
without their Pensions would be on their heads, revealing that some of
the Senior Pension Board Staff involved have hotels in Owerri, Aba and
Delta State, while two of them have housing estates, and said they would
be made to face the full wrath of the law.
The governor also warned that any government official found to have a
hand in the fraud would also be made to face the music, adding that he
could now have a sigh of relief having discovered the factor behind the
worrisome rise in Pension bills every month.
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