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Borno govt uncovers fraud in pension system

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The Borno State government said Saturday it had uncovered some fraudulent activities of some pensioners in the state.

The state’s Head of Service (HoS), Simon Malgwi, who disclosed this at a press conference in Maiduguri, said the ongoing public hearing on pension had revealed some of the pensioners’ shady deals.

He said the state government had been able to save N400 million and attend to complaints from 387 pensioners from the revelations at the public hearing.

Malgwi said: “The public hearing has also uncovered far more serious cases of fraud and other unsavoury activities on the part of the pensioners.”

The HoS revealed that the fraudulent activities had profoundly affected the verification process and considerably hindered the processing of the pensioners’ forms in the exercise.

He added: “Most of these fraudulent cases border on deliberate overstay in the service beyond the mandatory years of service or retirement age which they perpetrated by altering either their dates of birth or dates of the first appointment.

“There were also cases of those who were collecting both salaries and pensions at the same time and, which is gross misconduct and a betrayal.

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“In the course of the hearing, cases of impersonation, improper replacement and over-payment of pension have also been discovered.

“There are also cases of next of kins of deceased pensioners not reporting the death to the government thereby continuing to collect the pensions until the ATM expires.”

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