N35bn Pension Scam Allegation Not True – HoSF

The Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, has described as untrue the allegation of a purported discovery of a pension scam amounting to N35billion in his office by one of the consultants employed by the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team (PRTT).
Dr Aji said nobody in his right senses will allow himself to be used or get involved in this kind of situation knowing full well that people are currently being prosecuted for corruption offences.
The HoSF who disclosed this in an  exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP in his office in Abuja. He said the allegation was possible because freedom of speech and expression had been widely expanded by President Goodluck Jonathan government through the Freedom of Information Act.
He denied the allegation by the consultant he hijacked the payment of pension, saying the office of the HoSF has always been saddled with the responsibility of managing pension fund.
Aji said: “In the publication the consultant was talking that the Head of Service had hijacked the payment of pension from PRTT. Since when I was posted as permanent secretary to the office of the Head of Service, the activities of PRTT had been disbanded. The office of the Head of Service had  been managing the pension even since before I came here as a Permanent Secretary. The fact that is my coming that hijacked it is completely untrue.”
He further stated that the PRTT formally only engaged a technical consultant to help it in data capturing and since the task team had been dissolved, it was strange that a consultant was still serving and addressing the press on behalf of the task team.
The HoS also noted that his administration had carried out reforms in the service to achieve better service delivery in line with the transformation agenda of the President Jonathan administration.
He also disclosed that the service had decided to localise most of the training programmes of public servants rather than the practice of sending them abroad, saying the country had all the necessary facilities to train workers in Nigeria and save the cost of  overseas trainings.
“We only approve training outside the shores of the country where  such training does not exist in Nigeria. What we did was that we empowered, repositioned and capacitated the Public Service Institute of Nigeria and the Administratives Staff College of Nigeria, and all the programmes that we used to send personnel abroad - unless they don’t  have the capacity to train -  we no longer do it,” he said.

- Leadership

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