Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Governor Alex Otti, has vowed to prosecute civil servants suspected to be involved in the pension fund fraud in Abia State.
The Governor who spoke during a media parley in Umuahia, vowed that all those involved in stealing of money meant for senior citizens would be brought to justice.
Otti who said about 11 civil servants were involved in the fraud, revealed that they would soon be arraigned.
He said that the government would continue with its efforts to sanitise the civil service and stressed that tolerance for corruption is zero.
Otti said that once his Government got convincing information of the pension fraud syndicate, the government arrested the people involved.
“We continued with our efforts to sanitise the civil service. I’m sure you would have heard some reports about some civil servants who were involved in pension fraud.
“We are continuing with their prosecution. I have authorised that in the next few days, they (pension fraud suspects) should be arraigned before the court to come and tell us how come they were stealing from the State.
“From the report I got, about ten or eleven of them. Some of them are outside the country. We are going to repatriate them to answer to the State for their sins,” Gov. Otti stated.
Governor Otti said it is unfortunate that some members of the opposition were brazenly castigating government on air against the decision to arrest the suspects and assured that government was not going back on its decision no matter who is involved.
“We can’t tolerate that kind of corruption. No matter who is involved, people who are defending thieves should be perceived and treated like thieves. So, we are issuing a warning. There is a limit to opposition,” the Governor said.
The Governor also said he had directed the Accountant-General of the State and the Commissioner for Finance to look into the errors noticed in the payment of the new minimum wage and correct them accordingly.
“We received a few reports that there were some errors, some computation issues and I have directed the Accountant-General and the Commissioner for Finance to sit down and look at it and correct those errors so that we don’t have complaints coming from there.”
