Senate probes EFCC over ‘missing’ 222 mansions

[Edoman]

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The Senate, yesterday, directed its ad hoc committee investigating the reinstatement and promotion of the former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, to also probe a fresh allegation that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) re-looted about 222 mansions recovered by Maina. But the anti-graft agency faulted the claims of missing seized houses.
Senator Emmanuel Paulker (PDP, Bayelsa), who rose through a point of order to make the allegation at plenary, said that information reaching the ad hoc committee in the course of its on-going investigation on Mainagate, indicated that about 222 recovered property, comprising exotic houses and hotels handed over to EFCC by Maina before his removal as the chairman of Presidential Taskforce in 2014, had been shared by top officials of the EFCC or interested parties in the society.

He told the Senate that his committee got wind of the looted property from submissions made by some of the invited government officials connected with the reinstatement and promotion of Maina. Paulker, therefore, prayed the Red Chamber to expand the scope of the ad hoc committee’s investigation in unravelling those who were involved in the inglorious re-looting act.
He said: “For this alarming revelation sir, this committee requests the Senate to expand the scope of its investigation on Maina by extending it to the management of assets recovered by him and handed over to EFCC before his removal as Chairman, Presidential Task Team on Pensions in 2014 and by so doing, extend the duration of the assignment.”
The President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, subjected the request to voice vote, and it was overwhelmingly supported by the lawmakers. In his remarks, Saraki tasked the committee to do everything possible in unravelling those behind the alleged re-looting of the property and report back in four weeks.
“This is a very serious matter and more of large scale corruption going on in a forbidden place. We just hope that it remains at the realm of allegation and not as it is presented,” he said.

The Paulker-led committee had, in the last two weeks, had close-door sessions with the Attorney- General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN); the Minister of Interior, General Abdulrahaman Dambazau (rtd); and Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Mustapha Sulaiman among others, on their roles in the reinstatement and promotion of Maina in the Federal Civil Service, after three years of disappearance from the public space on alleged mismanagement of pension funds.
Meanwhile, the EFCC last night denied the allegation of missing 222 houses. In a statement late last night, the EFCC faulted the comments attributed to Paulker, alleging that officials of the Commission shared 222 properties which Maina’s Panel seized from pension fund thieves.
The commission described the comment as “sweeping allegation,” which coming from a Senate Committee “is disturbing more so as no attempt was made to verify the information from the Commission.”

The statement signed by the agency’s Head of Media, Wilson Uwujaren, said that the EFCC was never invited by the Committee and given the opportunity to educate it on the status of assets seized from suspected pension thieves.
“Yet, the Committee was comfortable to scandalize the EFCC with the public disclosure of unverified claims by unknown interests. “For the avoidance of doubt, there are no 222 properties anywhere that were shared by anybody. The EFCC did not receive a single property from Abdulrasheed Maina.
All the pension fraud assets that are in the recovered assets inventory of the Commission were products of independent investigation by the EFCC, for which Maina and his cohorts had no clues.

“If Maina or any government official witnessed the sharing of any recovered pension assets by any official of the EFCC, they should be willing to name the official, the assets involved; when and where the ‘sharing’ took place.” The EFCC added: “As far as the EFCC is concerned, there is no controversy regarding the status of assets recovered from suspected pension thieves.
The record of all the recovered assets from both the Police Pension and the Pension Office of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation as well as their current status are intact, and have been communicated to the relevant organs of government.
“However, in view of the consistent display of public ignorance about the profile of recovered assets by even those who should know, it is important to state that it is impossible for anybody to share a property that is subject of interim forfeiture by court.
Of all the properties seized from pension fraud suspects, it is only properties that are linked to John Yusuf, who was convicted under a plea bargain arrangement that had been forfeited permanently and handed to government. All the others, with the exception of Brifina Hotel, are subject of interim forfeiture. And the cases are ongoing in courts.”\

https://newtelegraphonline.com/2017/11/s...-mansions/