NICON, AIICO, others summoned by Senate over N17.4bn pension remittances

The management of NICON Insurance Plc, AIICO Insurance Plc, and other insurance firms have been summoned by the Senate Public Accounts Committee for allegedly failing to remit N17.4 billion in pension funds to the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate.

The Senate’s summons was based on a 2016 report by the Federation’s Auditor-General, which revealed the suspected non-remittance of N17.4 billion in pension funds to PTAD.

The Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, testified before the panel on Monday that PTAD took over the properties and liabilities of the defunct pension offices without a formal handover.

“Upon taking over, the directorate wrote all underwriters, instructing them to make returns and remit any funds in their custody to a CBN dedicated account,” she said.

“Some of the underwriters responded to the request while some did not.

“The bank certificate of balances, accounting statements, three years financial statements and policy files requested by the federal auditor were not handed over to PTAD at the time of consolidation.

“It is worthy to note that we discovered that N17.4bn which comprised of cash, securities and properties from the nine insurance underwriters was unremitted as a result of the letter PTAD sent to them.

“These figures represent the claims by the underwriters with regards to their indebtedness.

“In order to ascertain the true position of legacy funds in the custody of underwriters, the directorate appointed a consultant in 2018 who carried forensic audit of nine out the 12 insurance underwriters and produced a final report on the recovery of the legacy funds and assets for PTAD.”