National Pension Commission, PenCom, has said documents in circulation purporting that its Director General, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar, spent millions of dollars in travels during the Covid-19 pandemic were concocted.
PenCom in a statement said that the accusation against its DG was a figment of the imagination of its promoters, adding that it wasn’t possible for Dahir-Umar to get the humongous ‘estacodes’ even if she spent two years outside the country.
The commission, said: “Management will like to alert the public to the renewed campaign of outrageous falsehood against PenCom and its Director General, Mrs. Dahir-Umar, over some imagined financial impropriety.
“Although the promoters of this fiction went to the extent of manufacturing documents and listing non-existent bank accounts to make the fabrication look real, a fiction remains a fiction and can never become the truth no matter how many times it is repeated and recycled.”
Recall Dahir-Umar was alleged to have paid millions of dollars on travel allowance for foreign trips she did not embark upon in 2020.
PenCom said the poor attempt at calumny against its leadership was exposed by the fact that there was a global lockdown in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic during which international travels were restricted.
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It added that during the time, offices were shut down and most people had to hold virtual meetings.
It noted that it was, 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.
“Rates for estacodes are standardised. If the DG 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,” the statement added.
PenCom said it was aware of current political intrigues in the country caused by the jostling for appointments, noting that it believed there were more decent ways of going about it than peddling ‘tales by moonlight’ and using notorious online outlets to push the lies to unsuspecting readers.
The commission enjoined members of the public to ignore the ‘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,” it added.
