£2.2Million PHCN Pension Fund traced to Barclays Bank in London

The eight-man panel set up by the former minister of power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, to investigate pension matters in the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) has discovered about £2.2 million (N572 million) PHCN pension money stashed away in Barclays Bank, United Kingdom.

This was disclosed during the presentation of the committee's report to the minister of state for power, Arc. Darius Ishaku, in Abuja yesterday.

The committee headed by former auditor-general of the federation Mr Joseph Ajiboye noted that although it met with initial difficulty in getting the financial statement of PHCN, the panel was eventually able to access all required documents and began its search from 1990.

He said the sum of £2.2 million which was traced to the UK bank was unutilised for over 20 years, and efforts to retrieve it were met with bottlenecks. 'But we believe the Nigerian high commissioner in London can help in retrieving the money,' he said.

Explaining how the money got to Barclays Bank, Ajiboye said PHCN had expatriates at the initial stage whose pensions were supposed to be paid. 'We understand that the last expatriate has since died, so there's no need for the account to continue to exist,' he said.

More findings, he said, also revealed that, between 1990 and 2010, the total amount of money remitted to the PHCN superannuation fund was N53.6 billion. A breakdown showed that between 1990 and 1999 a total of N1.7 billion was paid into the fund while N51.2 billion was remitted between 2000 and 2010.

TNV
He said government would also explore ways to retrieve the money stashed overseas.  The meeting ended with a visit to the site of PHCN's property.