A former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, has approached another court in Abuja for the variation of his bail conditions.
This came few days after Justice Okon Abang Federal High Court in Abuja varied his bail application from N1billion to N500million in one of the cases the federal government filed against the former pension reform boss.
Maina, who is also standing trial together with his former secretary, Mrs Ann Olachi, before an FCT High Court in Gwagwalada on a 9-count charge bordering on alleged N738million fraud during his term as the pension reform boss, has filed another bail variation application before the court.
The court, presided over by Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi, had on November 28, 2019 admitted Maina to bail in the sum of N100million and ordered him and his co-defendant to produce two sureties, who must be responsible citizens and resident within the FCT. He was also ordered to report to the EFCC forthnightly.
In the affidavit attached to the application and deposed to by one Abbas Sanni, Maina said “none of the proposed sureties is willing to deposit his/her Certificate of Occupancy with the court in order to secure bail for the applicant”.
The application, which has been opposed to by the EFCC, is scheduled for hearing on Friday.
Earlier in the trial on Thursday the prosecution called a witness, one Ibrahim Abdulkarim, a former member of the PRTT, who was seconded from the office of the Permanent Secretary of Establishment, office of the Head of Service.
Led by M.S. Abubakar, the witness in his evidence-in-chief told the court that sometimes in December, 2010 “Maina brought out a memo he has written requesting for money to undergo the nationwide biometric enrolment. The memo was closed with my name. He gave me the memo to sign and minute to him, which I did and he now minute it to the Perm Sec, Establishment for approval. The money in the memo was N146million. The memo was approved by the Head of Service. After the approval, Maina called me that five accounts should be used for the total amount.
“He (Maina) told me to get the account of my colleagues in the Perm Sec office, those that can be trusted, which I did. In my own account, N55,944,000 was credited while the remaining balance was splitted into the account of my four colleagues.”
The witness further said that sometimes in 2011, another memo was raised and there was a payment made on his name.
“The payment of N86million was made to my account for a pension exercise. After the money was paid into my account, Maina called me and gave me a list of officers that will coordinate the exercises in the states’ office and told me to give an instruction to my account to debit my account and credit the attached list.
“Also, my name was part of the attached list. Money slated for my name was N5,683,000. After the instruction I gave to my account, there was a company that was handling the biometric enrolment exercise and they have been threatening to stop work for lack of payment. Maina directed me to, out of my own portion of N5.6m, go and pay the company N3.1million, which I did and I have the photocopy of the teller of the payment. He directed me to take the balance to one Mr. Anoka, his SA Technical, which I did,” the witness said.
During cross-examination by Mazi Afam Osigwe, Maina’s counsel, the witness while reading from his statement to the EFCC, confirmed that the biometric exercise was nationwide and the money was disbursed to the beneficiaries accordingly.
He also confirmed that in his statement to the EFCC, he never stated that the money was withdrew as cash and given to the second defendant on the order of Maina.
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