Abuja, July 31, 2023: The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has described as false, allegations of financial impropriety against its Director General, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar.
A statement by Head of Corporate Communications of PenCom, Mr Abdulqadir Dahiru said the clarification was in response to a newspaper publication alleging financial impropriety against the D-G through inflated travel costs in 2020.
According to statement, this poor attempt at calumny is exposed by the fact that there was a global lockdown in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic during which international travels were restricted.
“It is, thus, most outlandish to suggest that any government agency would claim to be paying allowances to its officials for international travels when most airports were shut down globally.
“Official foreign trips require strict documentation, including air tickets, stamped passport pages and evidence of number of days spent. Rates for estacodes are standardised,” the statement said.
The statement noted that if the D-G were to spend two years abroad without returning to the country for one day, it would still be impossible for her to claim a million dollars as estacode.
“The desperate fabricators need to respect the intelligence of Nigerians.
“ We are aware of current political intrigues in the country caused by the jostling for appointments.
“But we believe there are more decent ways of going about it than peddling tales falsehood and using online outlets to push the lies to unsuspecting readers.
“ The public is implored to ignore these fake documents and the discredited allegations being recycled at the slightest opportunity.
“The commission has nothing to hide and will continue to run a transparent and accountable system,” the statement added.
