February 28, 2024
SaharaReporters gathered that while the Oronsaye report recommended that PTAD should be placed under the Pension Commission (PenCom) or made to stand alone, the permanent secretaries asked Tinubu to push it under the Federal Ministry of Finance to perfect some hidden corruption motives.
The body of serving Federal Permanent Secretaries which met with President Bola Tinubu last Thursday gave a recommendation on the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) different from what is contained in the Steven Oronsaye report, SaharaReporters has learnt.
SaharaReporters gathered that while the Oronsaye report recommended that PTAD should be placed under the Pension Commission (PenCom) or made to stand alone, the permanent secretaries asked Tinubu to push it under the Federal Ministry of Finance to perfect some hidden corruption motives.
SaharaReporters had reported that the Permanent Secretaries, led by the Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs. Folashade Omolara Yemi-Esan on Thursday met Tinubu at the Presidential Villa.
During her presentation at the meeting, the Head of Service informed the president that it was the collective recommendation of the Permanent Secretaries that the Oronsaye report "be implemented in full; hook, line, and sinker."
Part of their recommendation was that the PTAD should "be scrapped and functions to be taken over by Federal Ministry of Finance."
SaharaReporters on Monday reported how Tinubu ordered the full implementation of the 2012 Steve Oronsaye report.
Meanwhile, at the meeting with Tinubu, the permanent secretaries explained that the Oronsaye report would usher in professionalism, cut the cost of governance, and ensure efficient and effective service delivery to the citizenry.
In his response to the remarks of the Head of Service, the President said he had noted the recommendation and asked the Head of Service whether the recommendation was a collective decision of the body of Permanent Secretaries, to which she answered "Yes".
Top sources on Wednesday revealed to SaharaReporters that the permanent secretaries had an ulterior motive on the scrapping of the PTAD and pushing it under the Federal Ministry of Finance.
"The forum of permanent secretaries removed the PTAD from the Oronsaye recommendation to merge with PENCOM and they rather took it to the Ministry of Finance to loot pension funds.
"You may recall the pension funds were managed by the civil servants and superintended by the Head of Service. In order to stop the corruption, the government of Goodluck Jonathan took the bull by the horns by creating PTAD through the PRA Act 2007," one of the top sources said.
"This breathed life into the agency and deployed technology to stop the stealing of pension funds. The civil servants kept fighting the agency because when they were looking for posting to agencies with huge funds, they chose PTAD.
"Nellie Meshach was brought in from Canada to set up the agency. Likewise, they no longer get the power to superintend the intended stealing. To their dismay, they are always disappointed by the tech put in place. All the directors of finance went on leave in a short time due to the disappointments," he added.
"Most of these civil servants are accountants from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. Now they used this opening of the Oronsaye report to mislead the president to have their way.
"These funds are purely for our parents who served this country. And they depend on the stipends for survival. Now the opportunity to take back PTAD into their hands came through the Oronsaye report which did not recommend PTAD to be taken to the Ministry of Finance. Rather it said it should be merged with PENCOM or left to stand alone."
Former President Goodluck Jonathan established the presidential committee on government agency reform in 2011, which was chaired by Steven Oronsaye, the Federation's former Head of Service.
Its terms of reference had included among other things, reviewing the enabling Acts and mandates of all federal agencies, parastatals, and commissions to identify areas of overlap or duplication of functions.
The committee had recommended reducing 263 statutory agencies to 161, abolishing 38, merging 52, and reverting 14 to departments in ministries. However, a white paper committee led by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mohammed Adoke rejected the majority of the recommendations.
In 2021, the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated two committees to implement the report. One of the committees, headed by a former Head of Service, Bukar Aji, was mandated to review the Oronsaye Report and the government white paper. The other committee, chaired by Amal Pepple, was mandated to review MDAs created between 2014 and 2021.
Affirming President Tinubu’s commitment to implement the report in a press statement issued by Onanuga on Monday evening, he listed no fewer than 14 agencies and commissions that were affected by this directive.
When contacted on the phone to know if he would speak on the matter on behalf of the Permanent Secretaries, the spokesman for the HoSF, Mr. Mohammed Sabo Ahmed, asked for some time but did not answer subsequent calls from our reporter.