Culled from The Punch
March 20, 2014 by John Ameh, Abuja 52 Comments
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday accused the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, of “brandishing fake and forged documents” in her defence of the alleged missing N24bn from Police Pension Fund.
The committee had resumed sitting on the investigation on Thursday with the Director-General of Pension Transitional Arrangement Department, Mrs. Nellie Mayshak, and representatives of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation in attendance.
Members of the committee at the session argued that the minister was misleading Nigerians with her claim that the money was not missing but paid into bank accounts.
According to the Chairman of the committee, Mr. Solomon Olamilekan, there are no verifiable documents before the committee to track the money to any bank accounts.
Olamilekan noted that instead of honouring the committee’s invitation to address the issue, the minister opted to issue a press statement on an ongoing investigation.
He said, “We invited you people to appear before this committee on this serious transactions involving tax payers’ money running into billions of naira and the new DG of Pension Transitional Arrangement Department was honest enough to say that she just took over and that there was no document to back up the disbursement of the N24bn.
“We further requested more documentation in order to get to the root of the matter only for the minister to come up with a press statement that the money was not missing.
“We challenge her to a public debate where all the media houses will be present and will be on live on all television stations so that Nigerians will know whether or not the N24bn was not missing.”