The Senate joint committee investigating the management of the public sector pension scheme has discovered that a fresh N4.6bn is missing from funds under the old pension scheme.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Aloysious Etok, who disclosed this to our correspondent in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, said the committee was still trying to trace the accounts through which the money was stolen.

“We are making fresh discoveries as we investigate different accounts; the latest is another missing N4.6bn that we know was transferred from one account to different accounts, we are currently trying to trace where the money is,” he said.

Etok promised to make full details of the scam available when the committee completed its investigation.

According to him, the committee has been investigating different accounts and discovering more revelations and witnesses, who are coming out to give testimonies about frauds perpetuated under the pension scheme.

Etok said the committee wanted to return the N152bn recovered by the Pension Reform Task Force Team into the government account for the payment of pensioners.

“Our utmost interest is to make sure that the pensioners are paid their entitlements regularly; we are concerned about them, they should not be subjected to any hardship,” the senator said.

Etok noted that the committee was personally handling the investigation into the operations of the task force, which had earlier been suspended because of allegations made against the team.

 “At the end of the investigation, we will make our recommendations based on our findings, which will be made public. The duties we want the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to do, we will give them, and we will also involve the police whenever the need arises,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PRT and United Bank for Africa Plc, have in separate statements denied allegations that the team illegally opened an account with the bank, through which N3bn was transferred into individual accounts.

In a statement by the Information and Media Officer, PRT, Mr. Hassan Salihu, the task force said, “The account in UBA was opened vide the Accountant-General of the Federation’s approval with reference number AGF/TRY/RB/508/VOL I/20, dated August 2011, in the name of the Police Pension Office for the payment of accrued pension liabilities, and the account is still in the name of the Police Pension Account and not the task team nor its members.

“The account has been frozen vide a request from the task team and at the instance of the Minister of Finance after obtaining approval from Mr. President. The funds are intact and safe in UBA Account 1015556733 and could not be accessed by pension thieves.”

Also, the statement from UBA, figured by the bank’s Divisional Head, Marketing and Corporate Relations, Mr. Charles Aigbe, read, “The account was opened on June 29, 2011; an inflow of N3bn from the police pension fund was credited into the account on July 22, 2011. Till date, there have been no transactions conducted on this account.

“On September 15, 2011, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and the Minister of Finance wrote a letter to UBA, endorsing the signatories, freezing the account and mandating that no transactions be conducted on the account except through her direct supervision. This mandate has since been upheld.”

-Punch