2.2.3 Allegation of fraudulent withdrawal by Afolabi of =N=119,979,952.85 from PPO account
The sum of =N=119,979,952.85 was debited to PPO account with First Bank on 7 September 2011. The amount was for the payment of gratuity and pension arrears of 665 retired police officers who were already on pension payroll. The circumstances surrounding the payment were traceable to the tenure of Wada as Director of PPO when =N=1,029,476,298.73 was paid to 3,592 beneficiaries as harmonisation arrears. These 3,592 beneficiaries were part of the 4,278 retired officers whose harmonisation arrears had been computed by an in-house committee (led by Dosumu) set up by Wada to compute the entitlements of eligible retired police officers.
Prior to the payment of =N=119,979,952.85, both the SGF and the HMPA had intervened regarding the difficulties experiences by retired officers in receiving their entitlements. Specifically, the HMPA had directed PPO in September 2011 to commence the payment of all outstanding arrears due to police pensioners immediately Adeyemi, even as Director of PPO, had experienced difficulties in changing signatories to PPO bank accounts because there was no introduction to the banks by the existing signatories to the accounts. He sought the intervention of Afolabi as HOSF. In response to a letter from First Bank requesting Adeyemi to provide the bank with an introductory letter from the HOSF or in accordance with PPO mandate to the bank. Afolabi wrote First Bank on 6 September 2011, introducing Adeyemi as Director of PPO, and requiring the bank to effect changes to the signatories immediately. First Bank honoured the letter from the HOSF because Adeyemi approved the payment of =N=119,979,952.85 on 7 September 2011, and the amount was debited to PPO account with First Bank on the same day to pay the 665 beneficiaries.
There was no evidence that the approval of the AFT was obtained to change signatories to introduce the new signatories to First Bank because Maina made himself inaccessible during the period, especially after Afolabi directed him to hand over to Adeymi.
First Bank was of the view that, since the bank account issue was that of a Government department and all the extant signatories were civil servants, an introduction by the HOSF was valid in the circumstances since the HOSF is the head of the civil services of the Federation and as such the overall boss of the signatories This was more so since both Maina/Task Team and Adeyemi were all appointed to PPO by the HOSF. The bank also explained that refusal to honour a letter from the HOSF in the circumstances was capable of foisting a situation of helplessness on the Government if extant signatories to a bank account of a Government department refuse to introduce new signatories to such an account.
2.2.4 Allegation of claim by ARPON that alleged beneficiaries of =N=119,979,952.85 were not members of ARPON
ARPON is an association of retired Nigerian Police Officers. Membership of ARPON is voluntarily not mandatory for retired police personnel. The fact that some of the beneficiaries of the payment of =N=119,979,952.85 might not have been members of ARPON id not imply that such beneficiaries were not genuine retired police officer or were not entitled to the payment.
Out of the 665 beneficiaries of the payment, we identified the following five (5) names that could not be traced to the July 2011 and the August 2011 pension payrolls received from the Task Team the biometric database of police pensioners, also received from the Task Team the computations of the Dosunmu - led committee as well as the 717 verification forms sampled at PPO The EPN for both Ogbe Comfort and Tabitha Wakili were serial. Both also maintained accounts at the same bank through at different branches. Furthermore, both were supposed to be paid the same amount. Both Comfort Ogbe and M Mohammed maintained accounts at the same branch of the same bank. The payments to Ogbe Comfort, Tabitha Wakili and M Mohammed failed and the amounts were credited back to the PPO account with First Bank on 12 September 2011.
We identified one (1) instance of double payment which was made when =N=1,029,476,298.73 was paid on 7 September 2011. Bennett Oghomone (retired AIG) was paid =N=137,787.48 on both occasions. The payment of =N=137,787.48 on 7 September 2011 had been reversed and the amount was credited back to PPO bank account on 18 October 2011.
We further identified an instance where the amount computed by the Dosunmu - led committee was at variance with the amount paid to the beneficiary. The committee had computed =N=321.523.93 for Ekim Sunday (EPN0018972). However, =N=33,913.13 was paid to him on 7 September 2011. We could not ascertain the reason(s) for the discrepancy.
2.2.5 Concerns about whereabouts of =N=24 billion harmonisation arrears fund
The Government released =N=24 billion to PPO on 19 July 2010 for the payment of the harmonisation arrears of 6% and 15% increments arising from the pension review exercises of 2003 and 2007. Of this amount, PPO had paid out about =N=5,578,816,914.02 as harmonisation arrears as at 7 September 2011. We have reflected as Annexure 1 of this report an analysis of the payment of the harmonisation arrears. A summary is reflected below With the payment of =N=5,578.816.914.02 as harmonisation arrears as at 7 September 2011 PPO should have a credit balance of =N=18,421,183,085.98 on its account out of the sum of =N=24 billion. This amount excludes the interest earned on the placement of the fund (or part of it) with some banks. Our analysis of the bank statement for PPO accounts with the banks that had placed the =N=24 billion fund or part of it reflected that as at 30 September 2011 PPO had a credit balance of =N=33,521,728460.73 with these banks. The summary is presented in the table below.
The above balances included other PPO funds that were not related to the =N=24 billion fund, such as the interest earned on the placement of the fund (or part of it) with some banks and the balances of the excess of the monthly release of about =N=1.5 billion. We observed that whereas the PPO bank accounts, which were opened prior to the assumption of office at PPO by Maina were for specific purposes there had been co-mingling of funds in these accounts since the assumption of office by Maina.
There had been instances of movement of part and all of the =N=24 billion harmonisation fund from one (1) PPO bank account to another during the tenures of Kigo and Wada as Director of PPO as well as during the tenure of Maina at PPO. We had detailed the movement of the fund in section 3.1.5 of this report on detailed findings. We were not able to conclusively ascertain the reason for the various instances of movement of the fund. Our analysis also reflected that PPO had lost interest on the fund as a result of the movement of the fund. We estimated that PPO had lost about =N=58,892,049.95 in interest as a result of the instances of the movement of the fund.
The payment of =N=5,578.816, 914.02 refereed to above, did not include the entitlements of the retired police officers and their NOKs. The entitlements of these two (2) categories of beneficiaries as computed by the Dosunmu-led committee, were as follows:
The above computations were as at June 2011. Thus there is still the need to compute the entitlements of these categories of beneficiaries from July 2011 until the dates of adjustment of their monthly pensions to reflect the increases in 2003 and 2007, as the case may be. This adjustment also will apply to the monthly pensions of retired officers already on pension payroll who were the beneficiaries of the payments made by Wada and Adeyemi on 3 June 2011 and 7 September 2011, respectively, the adjustment of the monthly pensions for this category of beneficiaries also will be from July 2011 until the date that their monthly pensions reflect the increases in 2003 and 2007, as the case may be.
2.2.6 Allegation of receipt and accumulation of excess pension fund (=N=1.5 billion) than needed (=N=500 million)
Between 1 January 2009 and 31 August 2011, the Government released to PPO and PPO received a total sum of =N=45,558,321,746.64 for payment of monthly pensions, pension arrears gratitude and pension running costs. This amount which excludes the sum =N=24 billion released to PPO in July 2010 for the settlement of harmonisation arrears is analysed as follows:
• January 2009 -31 December 2009 =N=12,364,797.078
• January 2010 -31 December 2010 =N=20,412,252,690 and
• January 2011 - 31 August 2011 =N=12,781,271,978.64
On the average, the Government released =N=1,432,697,554.58 per month pensions, pension arrears and gratuities as well as for its “running cost” even, even when there was no budgetary appropriation for pension arrears and gratuities in 2009 and 2011 PPO staff claimed that the budgetary/statutory allocation for its running costs was inadequate necessitating it to supplement its running cost from the monthly allocations for the payment of monthly pensions, pension arrears and gratuities PPO could not provide us with any such authorisation enabling it to supplement it running cost from the allocations for payment of monthly pensions, pension arrears and gratuities.
PPO claimed to have spent a total sum of =N=24,800,999,150.96 out of the total allocation =N=33,193,524,668.64 for the 20 month period covering 1 January 2010 to 31 August 2011. We could not vouch for the accuracy of the amount claimed by PPO since there no inconsistencies in the records given to us by PPO.
In addition, PPO could not provide us with adequate supporting documentation for its alleged expenses to enable us to perform an independent analysis. If the claim by PPO that spent =N=24,800,999,150.96 were correct, it would imply that PPO should have an unspent sum or credit balance of =N=8,392,525,517.68 out of the monthly allocations in 2010 and 2011 alone PPO could not provide us with any data or analysis of its expenditure for 2009 because PPO staff claimed that the records were difficult to sort where had been kept. Thus we were unable to ascertain the amount that PPO expended out of the sum of =N=12,364,797,078 that was released to it in 2009.
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