The Pension Transitional Arrangement Department (PTAD) and two federal agencies charged with investigating and prosecuting corrupt and economic financial crimes, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission (ICPC) are pooling their resources together to combat pension crime gang.
The director, parastatals pension department, Mr. Kabiru Yusuf, who represented PTAD Executive Secretary, Dr. Chioma Ejiekeme, at a recent capacity training for pension reporters said the two investigating and prosecuting agencies have a robust working relationship and PTAD is leveraging this to its utmost benefit to fight pension crime on all fronts.
Yusuf said since the Department cannot investigate and prosecute crimes, it relies on the resources of of the two bodies investigative capacity, he explained that there are limits the Department could reach and for best reasons outsource further moves to the aforementioned federal agencies.
These pension crime syndicates he pointed out have deep tentacles in the public service departments and the department is employing up-to-date data technics to uproot these tentacles. However, he said these entrenched criminals and gangs are not laid back but on a reoccurring instances are throwing back every arsenal from their crime pouch into the public space to misinform and stir the public away from the filthy crime build up they created and try to hold down the fight against them .
Yusuf said the Department is not surprised at the high level resistance put up by those who have been draining the federal pension funds for several decades because “when you fight evil, evil fights back.”