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| Maina |
Absconded former pension boss Abdulrasheed Maina diverted huge sums belonging to pensioners via fake contracts, an official of the EFCC has alleged.
The wanted former chairman of Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms was said to have collaborated with a former Head of Service of the Federation Stephen Oronsaye in carrying out the act.
The EFCC official, Rouqayya Ibrahim, told the Federal High Court in Abuja, on Tuesday, that Maina ran a bank account using SMS and sending E-mails.
Rouqayya, who testified as a prosecution witness in the trial of Oronsaye, alleged that the pension funds were diverted by the duo through various companies.
Oronsaye, the Managing Director of Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, Osarenkhoe Afe and the company are facing a 24-count charge bordering on stealing and obtaining money by false pretence.
The prosecution alleged that the fraud, involving about N2 billion, was allegedly perpetrated using firms like Cluster Logistic Limited, Kongolo Dynamic Cleaning Limited, Drew Investment and Construction Company Limited, and Xangee Technologies Limited.
"We analysed the mandate, obtained necessary information like bank account numbers, and then requested for the account statements from the banks,” Rouqayya said.
She stated that the analysis revealed a company, Xangee Technologies Limited, which she noted, was already being tried before Justice Abubakar Talba of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Gudu, for alleged pension fraud.
The witness said: “We discovered that the company received payment of more than N183 million for biometric enrolment, but there was no biometric contract executed by the company, instead the money was withdrawn, converted to US dollars and handed over to Abdulrasheed Maina, through his brother, Khalid Biu.”
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