The Senate Joint Committee investigating alleged mismanagement of pension fund, yesterday, ordered the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to arrest the chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, over his refusal to appear before it to explain his role in the missing N195 billion.
The warrant of arrest for Maina was conveyed by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service, States and Local government, Senator Aloysius Etok at the resumption of hearing on the management of pension funds in Nigeria.
The committee on Tuesday had revealed that N195 billion unspent pension funds could not be accounted for.
Etok said that the committee had on five occasions asked the Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team to appear before the committee and explain how the task force office has been managing the money of the pensioners in the country.
“We want all of you to be witnesses to what he would have to tell us, all the services that he represents need to know what he is doing for them. They need to know how he is running the office on their behalf. Today,they are workers on active service, tomorrow they will retire and they will go to him, so they need to know what he is doing for them and we also need to give him an opportunity and we decided to be patient and be very tolerant to let him defend himself on other areas before we submit our reports.
“We mentioned that he was on the television talking about it, that he was not given a fair hearing and opportunity to explain his situation and to give his report. This is about the fifth sitting on this matter and he has refused to come. At this stage, if we do anything nobody will say we did not give him fair hearing. We want to give him fair hearing and even take the opportunity to defend himself on other areas. We want him to be completely satisfied.