The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate in conjunction with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested a federal auditor with the PTAD for extorting money from retirees.
PTAD stated that the arrest of the auditor was a sign that its anti-corruption programme was beginning to yield results.
The directorate had advised tfederal retirees to beware of fraudsters that might want to take advantage of them.
PTAD explained that in conjunction with the EFCC, it planned and coordinated the apprehension of the auditor, who was calling pensioners and demanding that a percentage of their pensions be paid to him after they had received payments.
According to the commission, the suspect claimed that the payments were tokens for helping to fast-track the processing of their payments.
PTAD said, “His actions are completely against the arrangement of PTAD. Our policy of not accepting any gratification from pensioners means that any staff caught in such misdemeanor will be handed over to security operatives.”
The agency added that the auditor had been released on bail pending the conclusion of the investigation against him.
The directorate stated that its employees were also being trained on how to recognise and deal with bribery and corruption issues, as well as to understand their responsibilities, especially when faced with an ethical dilemma.
PTAD added that it would continue to work with security operatives to track and monitor the activities of scammers and fraudsters.
The directorate also disclosed that over 24,000 pensioners from the Civil Service Pension payroll were suspended in April because they were not available for verification.
He added that it was now inevitable that pensioners would approach the directorate immediately as hundreds of genuine pensioners had been contacting the directorate weekly to be reinstated on the payroll.
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