Temitope
Temitope Akinola
Cross Rivers State Auditor-General, Mr. Anthony Ayine has uncovered an N8 million pension fraud in the State's Local Government Pension Board.
This was contained in a petition Ayine sent to the Cross Rivers State House of Assembly and the state Governor, Sen Ben Ayade.
He explained that in the cause of auditing, a pension fraud of N8,883,150.74 which was allegedly perpetrated by the board was uncovered. He added that more fraud could be detected if a further forensic audit was carried.
Ayine, who spoke with Punch correspondent in Calabar on Tuesday, alleged that the pension board manipulated the payment of pension and gratuity to the beneficiary of a dead official who served for 32 years in the office of the Auditor-General.
“In the course of our investigation, we came across fraudulent payment of gratuity and pension to beneficiary of our late official which in actual sense did not receive such amount. The staff served for 32 years and she died on grade level 10, Step 15
"The gratuity due to this official was supposed to be over N1m but because of manipulation we discovered that the board paid over N7m to the beneficiary of the late official.
Meanwhile, a former director of Local Government Pension Board, Mr. John Adie, described the allegation levelled against the board as false.
“As far as I know and from all available records, I am the only director that ever instituted reforms in the pension board. There is no fraud in the board rather I introduced a lot of reforms in the place. The kind of reforms I introduced was such that all pension files were captured in the data base and we have a website," he said.
Source: Punch
Image Credit: Vanguard
This was contained in a petition Ayine sent to the Cross Rivers State House of Assembly and the state Governor, Sen Ben Ayade.
He explained that in the cause of auditing, a pension fraud of N8,883,150.74 which was allegedly perpetrated by the board was uncovered. He added that more fraud could be detected if a further forensic audit was carried.
Ayine, who spoke with Punch correspondent in Calabar on Tuesday, alleged that the pension board manipulated the payment of pension and gratuity to the beneficiary of a dead official who served for 32 years in the office of the Auditor-General.
“In the course of our investigation, we came across fraudulent payment of gratuity and pension to beneficiary of our late official which in actual sense did not receive such amount. The staff served for 32 years and she died on grade level 10, Step 15
"The gratuity due to this official was supposed to be over N1m but because of manipulation we discovered that the board paid over N7m to the beneficiary of the late official.
Meanwhile, a former director of Local Government Pension Board, Mr. John Adie, described the allegation levelled against the board as false.
“As far as I know and from all available records, I am the only director that ever instituted reforms in the pension board. There is no fraud in the board rather I introduced a lot of reforms in the place. The kind of reforms I introduced was such that all pension files were captured in the data base and we have a website," he said.
Source: Punch
Image Credit: Vanguard
