THE Senate Panel investigating the reinstatement of wanted Chairman of the Presidential Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, has revealed how some interest groups shared the properties recovered from pension thieves.

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, revealed this on Thursday during the Senate plenary.

Paulker, who came under a Point of Order, told the Senate that the 270 houses and other properties recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have been shared by the interest groups.

Our correspondent gathered that the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who appeared before the Committee, presented some documents that justified the reinstatement of Maina back to service.

In the documents obtained by our correspondent, Malami sought to know what happened to the monies recovered from syndicate.

He asked: “What about 270 properties comprising of real estate and motor vehicles, one of which is a mansion worth N1 billion situated at No 42 Gana Street, Maitama, Abuja allegedly given to a senior lawyer meant to crave his ‘buy in’ in maximizing media hype someday, distracting the attention of the public from the pension fraud.”

Speaking on the point, Paulker asked the Senate to extend the tentacle of its investigation into the properties recovered by Maina from the pension thieves when he was the chairman of pension task team.

According to him, the 270 houses and other properties recovered from pension thieves were in the custody of the EFCC before it was shared.

He said: “We should investigate circumstances surrounding sharing of the recovered loot.

“The Committee should be mandated to investigate the matter.”

Paulker added that report on the reinstatement of Maina will be ready in two weeks, while the one on recovered loot will be submitted in four weeks time.

The Senate granted the prayer of the chairman of the committee to extend the tentacles of the investigation to know the circumstances surrounding the sharing of the recovered loot.  –  Eagle

Nov 23, 2017 @ 16:57 GMT |