Following a recent report on a particular pension scammer, the Chairman, Delta State Bureau for Pensions, Sir Edwin Ogidi-Gbegbaje (KSM)has disclosed actions that would be implemented on him.
Ogidi-Gbegbaje gave the disclosure when he played host to members of the Indigenous Correspondents’ Chapel (ICC), Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council at his office in Asaba.
He said the activity of one scammer whose name he gave as James Onoja Pen, with the phone number 07070764813, demanding the sum of N45, 000 to facilitate the payment for a retiree, has been brought to his notice.
The Chairman said government was after pensions’ scammers who misled innocent citizens especially unsuspecting pensioners and their family members.
He warned that those indulged in defrauding pensioners of their hard earned resources to desist as they would be made to face the wrath of the law.
He said the Bureau under his watch will not tolerate any form of corruption and unscrupulous element, adding that the scammer was not a staff of the board.
“We do not solicit for or demand for payments in the processing of pension benefits. If there is anybody who is doing so, I want to plead, let that person be exposed, because if I get reliable information on those persons or person who are doing that, such person or persons will face the law, I will not tolerate that and it will not be encouraged”.
“Anybody who is found wanting doing that, will face dire consequences. That is my position on it”, the forthright Bureau Chairman, declared.
“It may have happened in the past but not here. Somebody came here in respect of pension for his late mother and he said he got a phone call from somebody who got the information of the late mother very correctly but now said he should part with N45, 000 to get the money out quickly”.
“I have collected the name of the person who made that phone call, I will strongly advise and warn that anybody who accepts such request to give gratification to anybody for the processing or the payments for entitlement, does so at his/her own risk”.
