EFCC slams 6-count charge against former NNPC boss, Yakubu

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Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)  slammed a six-count charge on a former Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr Andrew Yakubu.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday slammed a six-count charge on a former Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr Andrew Yakubu.

The charge was contained in court papers filed on March 9 at the Federal High Court Abuja.

According to the charge sheet, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Yakubu was accused of failing to make full disclosure in his Assests Declaration form of the sums of 9,772 800 dollars and 74,000 pounds contrary to Srction 27 (3)(a) of the EFCC act 2004.

He was also accused of receiving a cash payment of the said sums without going through a financial institution thereby committing an offence under the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011.

The former NNPC boss was further charged with receiving the same amount when he fully knew that the said fund formed part of proceed of unlawful activity.

This, according to the charge sheet, run counter to Section 7 (4) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006.

The EFCC had in February found about $9.8m and 74,000 pounds kept in a run down bungalow in Sabon Tasha a suburb of Kaduna, which it said was concealed by Yakubu.

A court in Kano later ordered the forfeiture of the money to the federal government following a motion filed by the anti-graft agency.

However, the former NNPC boss has filed a case in another court in Kano seeking the vacation of the earlier court’s order.

He claimed that the money was proceeds of various gifts given to him while he was working with the NNPC

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Akeredolu dissolves Boards and Parastatals in Ondo State

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Akeredolu

Gov. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, of Ondo State has approved the dissolution of all Boards and Parastatals in the state.

The Head of Service, Mr Toyin Akinkuotu, on Saturday in Akure, announced the immediate dissolution of the boards and parastatals.

Akinkuotu, through a statement, urged all chairmen, political appointees and non-career employees in all boards and parastatals in the state to hand over all government properties in their custody to the accounting officers in their respective offices.

He, however, said that statutory commissions whose tenure were specified in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution were exempted from the dissolution.

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Modi headed for big win in key India state as counting begins

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi/ AFP PHOTO / PRAKASH SINGH

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party was heading for a landslide in the key battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, strengthening his grip on power, early counting of votes showed Saturday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party was leading in 292 seats out of the total 403 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, way above the 202 seats it needs to form a government on its own, early counting on the Election Commission of India website showed.

Home to 220 million people, Uttar Pradesh is the biggest electoral prize in the world’s largest democracy and the likely huge win for BJP will consolidate Modi’s grip on national politics two years before general elections.

The BJP was also leading in the state of Uttarakhand, according to the Election Commission, but the smaller states of Goa and Manipur were too close to call. The final results from all five states will be announced later Saturday.

The result in Uttar Pradesh would strengthen Modi’s hand in parliament’s upper house where his lack of a majority has stalled his reform agenda.

The alliance between the ruling regional Samajwadi Party and the Congress party was trailing in a distant second with leads in 67 seats in the country’s most populous state.

The beleaguered Congress was set to clinch a face-saving victory in Punjab, upsetting the apple cart of the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party, an anti-corruption party led by Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal which was tipped in some surveys to win in the state.

Since winning the first overall majority in three decades in the 2014 general election, Modi’s dominance has been largely unchallenged and he already looks well-placed for re-election in 2019.

“The poor have given a decisive verdict that Modi is our leader and is working for our welfare… women, youth and even minorities have voted for us,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, a senior BJP leader and the law minister.

“It is an extraordinary win for the party,” he said.

Even the major cash shortages which followed November’s shock ban on high denomination bank notes appears to have done little damage to his standing, particularly with Congress in disarray.

Celebrations broke out at BJP’s headquarters in state capital Lucknow where euphoric supporters danced to drum beats and distributed sweets.

“The state should now witness rapid development. Corruption and nepotism in governance would also come down,” one supporter, Viti Kumar, a housewife, told AFP.

Upbeat scenes also unfolded at BJP’s national headquarters in Delhi where men and women waved giant flags bearing the party’s lotus symbol and chanted “Modi, Modi”.

The multi-phase elections, which began in February, ended on Wednesday after which exit polls — that have proved unreliable in the past — were allowed to be published.

Nearly all predicted BJP to be ahead in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa.

– Congress set to seal Punjab –
The only crumb of comfort for Congress — which has led India for most of the post-independence period — was in Punjab where initial counting has given it an edge.

Uttar Pradesh has been ruled since 2012 by the socialist Samajwadi Party whose leader and current Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav went into an alliance for the election with Congress.

Yadav has been trying to tap into the pain from Modi’s cash ban, campaigning alongside Congress’ frontman Rahul Gandhi.

“The Samajwadi Party wholeheartedly accepts the verdict of the people of Uttar Pradesh. I congratulate BJP for winning the vote of the people,” Samajwadi Party spokesman Ghanshyam Tiwari told reporters in Lucknow.

The BJP fared poorly in the last UP elections, winning only 47 out of 403 assembly seats, but it clinched 73 out of 80 parliamentary constituencies in 2014 with Modi standing in the holy city of Varanasi.

A BJP win in Uttar Pradesh would have significant implications for the make-up of the Rajya Sabha — the upper house of parliament.

Several of Modi’s key reforms such as a nationwide sales tax have stalled in the chamber due to his lack of a BJP majority.

Its make-up is based on parties’ strength in the state assemblies, with the biggest states supplying the largest number of MPs.

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Turkey foreign minister insists on Netherlands visit

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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu / AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would go to the Netherlands on Saturday to drum up support for a high-stakes referendum, despite the Dutch government’s refusal to facilitate his trip.

“I am going to Rotterdam today (Saturday),” Cavusoglu told CNN-Turk television in an interview. “We will impose heavy sanctions on the Netherlands” if the visit is blocked, he added.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders on Thursday said his country would “in no way” facilitate Cavusoglu’s planned visit.

“We will not participate in a visit by a Turkish government official who wants to conduct a political campaign for a referendum,” Koenders said.

“Therefore we will not cooperate,” he said, adding he had informed Cavusoglu.

Cavusoglu was pencilled in to address a planned rally in the port city of Rotterdam on Saturday to gather support for a referendum in Turkey next month, aimed at boosting the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But Rotterdam’s mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb announced Wednesday the gathering was cancelled after an owner said the rally’s venue was no longer available.

“If tensions will increase because of my visit, let them be,” Cavusoglu said Saturday, adding: “What could be the harm of my visit?”

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China urges US-North Korea deal to avert ‘head-on collision’

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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi . / AFP PHOTO / WANG ZHAO

China on Wednesday called on North Korea to suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the US and South Korea halting annual military exercises, to prevent what it called a “head-on collision.”

Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s proposal came after a cascade of events that has sent regional tensions soaring, including a volley of North Korean missile tests that flew provocatively close to Japan.

China is particularly concerned over the deployment this week of an American missile-defence system being rolled out in South Korea as a shield against the growing North Korean threat.

Wang warned of a “looming crisis” unless the antagonists cooled down.

“The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming toward each other with neither side willing to give way,” Wang said at a press conference on the sidelines of China’s annual parliament session.

“The question is: are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision? Our priority now is to flash the red light and apply the brakes on both trains.”

He proposed that North Korea “suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the halt of the large-scale US-ROK exercises,” using the acronym for South Korea.

Pyongyang blasted at least four missiles toward Japan on Monday, three of which splashed down in waters within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

Seoul and Washington have begun annual joint exercises that always infuriate Pyongyang, and the US has begun deploying its THAAD anti-missile system which, though directed at North Korea, is seen by Beijing as a threat to its own defence interests.

Wang said China’s proposal could help bring the US and North Korea back to negotiations on ending Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.

– ‘Destabilising behaviour’ –
But it mirrors past North Korean offers that were rejected by the US, which said Pyongyang had no right to demand concessions in return for abiding by UN resolutions.

Six sets of UN sanctions since Pyongyang’s first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons. It held its most recent nuclear test last September.

Wang continued China’s hammering of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which he said “undermines China’s strategic security.”

North Korea has said its missile launches were tests for a possible strike on US bases in Japan.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned the launches as a “grave violation” of its resolutions barring North Korea from developing missile technology.

The Security Council, of which both the US and China are permanent members, denounced Pyongyang’s “increasingly destabilising behaviour” and vowed further measures.

An emergency council meeting has been called for Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump reiterated Washington’s “iron-clad commitment” to Japanese and South Korean security and threatened “very dire consequences” over the launches.

The US State Department said Wednesday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Japan, South Korea and China from March 15-19, his first trip to the region.

His talks would focus on “strategic coordination to address the advancing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea”.

THAAD is designed to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles.

The South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group has come under growing pressure in China for providing a site for the system, triggering concerns of a broader backlash in China against Seoul.

Chinese authorities have shut down 39 of the 99 Lotte Mart retail outlets over supposed fire-safety concerns, a Lotte spokesman said, and Chinese travel agencies have told AFP they were ordered to stop arranging Chinese tourist trips to South Korea.

North Korea is also squaring off against Malaysia over the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, brother of Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-Un.

South Korea says the killing in Kuala Lumpur’s airport using a banned chemical weapon was orchestrated by the North.

Pyongyang has accused Malaysia of smearing its reputation with the murder investigation.

On Tuesday it barred Malaysians from leaving its borders, prompting a tit-for-tat measure by Kuala Lumpur.

Daniel Pinkston, an analyst at Troy University in Seoul, said the North’s recent escalation of confrontations follows a well-worn playbook.

“There is a famous quote in their literature: if someone brings a pistol, bring a cannon. That’s how they operate,” he said.

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North Korea holds Malaysians ‘hostage’ in Kim spat

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A television screen shows news coverage of a North Korean rocket launch at Seoul station on March 7, 2017.<br />North Korea on March 7 banned Malaysians from leaving the country, prompting an immediate tit-for-tat response from Kuala Lumpur and dramatically escalating an already-heated diplomatic row over the murder of Kim Jong-Nam. / AFP PHOTO / Ed JONES

North Korea banned Malaysians from leaving the country Tuesday, triggering a tit-for-tat response from Kuala Lumpur which said its citizens were effectively being held “hostage” in the row over the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam.

Pyongyang’s extraordinary move came as it faced growing international condemnation for a volley of missiles it fired into the Sea of Japan, defying stringent global sanctions aimed at halting its weapons programme.

Tuesday’s developments marked a dramatic heightening of tensions with Malaysia three weeks after the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was murdered at an airport with the banned VX nerve agent.

The North decided to “temporarily ban the exit of Malaysian citizens in the DPRK”, the official news agency KCNA said, citing the foreign ministry and using the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The prohibition would remain in place “until the safety of the diplomats and citizens of the DPRK in Malaysia is fully guaranteed through the fair settlement of the case that occurred in Malaysia”.

The Malaysian foreign ministry said 11 of its citizens were currently in North Korea, including three embassy staff, six family members and two others who work for the UN’s World Food Programme.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak condemned the bar, and said he was ordering a similar ban on the movement of “all North Korean citizens in Malaysia”. Analysts said they could number around 1,000.

The home ministry had previously indicated the ban only affected diplomats and embassy officials.

“This abhorrent act, effectively holding our citizens hostage, is in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms,” Najib said, according to a statement.

“As a peace-loving nation, Malaysia is committed to maintaining friendly relations with all countries.

“However, protecting our citizens is my first priority, and we will not hesitate to take all measures necessary when they are threatened.”

– Weapon of mass destruction –
Pyongyang and Kuala Lumpur had unusually strong links for years, but ties have rapidly degenerated in the weeks since Kim Jong-Nam was attacked at a Malaysian airport by two women who wiped a deadly chemical on his face.

An autopsy revealed that to be VX nerve agent, a substance so dangerous it is classed as a weapon of mass destruction by the UN.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for the assassination, and Kuala Lumpur wants to question several North Koreans, although the only one it arrested was released last week for lack of evidence.

The North has never confirmed the dead man’s identity, but has denounced the Malaysian investigation as an attempt to smear it.

Kuala Lumpur announced the expulsion of the North’s ambassador over the weekend. He flew to Beijing on Monday, after launching a final verbal assault on his hosts.

Kang Chol slammed what he called a “pre-targeted investigation by the Malaysian police”. Photographs later showed him sitting in the economy section of the plane.

Pyongyang retaliated by formally ordering out his counterpart — who had already been recalled for consultations.

According to KCNA, the foreign ministry expressed hopes that the Malaysian government would solve the issue “as early as possible” from a position of “goodwill” and “setting store by and developing the bilateral relations”.

Malaysian diplomats and nationals in the North “may work and live normally under the same conditions and circumstances as before” while the travel ban is in place, it added.

The escalating row comes as the United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting to coordinate the global response to the North’s latest missile launches, which KCNA said Tuesday were trial runs at hitting “the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in Japan”.

Three of the four projectiles fired Monday came down provocatively close to Japan, in what observers said was a test of US President Donald Trump’s inchoate North Korea policy.

In phone calls to his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Trump reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to its allies.

The US will demonstrate to Pyongyang that there were “very dire consequences” for its actions, the White House said in a statement.

Under UN resolutions, Pyongyang is barred from any use of ballistic missile technology, but six sets of sanctions since its first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

New US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Japan, China and South Korea later this month, a weekend report said, with North Korea expected to top his agenda.

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Ndoma-Egba urges Niger Delta to embrace dialogue

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The Chairman of the NDDC Governing Board, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba.

The Chairman, Governing Board of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Sen. Victor Ndoma-Egba, has urged the people of the Niger Delta region to embrace the Federal Government’s option of dialogue and consultation.

Mrs Clara Braide, the Special Assistant, Communication Office of the Chairman Governing Board of NDDC, said this in a statement she issued and made a copy available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

Braide quoted Ndoma-Egba as describing steps taken by the Presidency to meet with key leaders and stakeholders in the region, ”highly commendable and remarkable.”

He noted that the steps were part of efforts to bring about lasting peace to the region.

“The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, following the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently on vacation, has in recent weeks been on a tour of major communities in the region,” the chairman said.

According to him, the aim of the Osinbajo’s tour is to have direct interface with the people of the region.

“The ongoing tour of the region is a further demonstration of the commitment of the Federal Government toward the development of the region.”

He maintained that Buhari’s government meant well for the people of region, stressing, however, that only the entrenchment of peace, could guarantee overall development of the region.

According to Ndoma-Egba, destruction of oil facilities and other government-owned assets within the region will not solve the problem, but aggravate the monumental infrastructural and environmental challenges facing the region.

He further said that NDDC and all other stakeholders were very appreciative of the move by the Presidency.

The chairman noted that the development of region would serve as a push for the new board and management of the interventionist agencies to be up and doing in the discharge of their duties.

The NDDC chairman expressed optimism that the time for change and solution to the various problems facing the region had come.

He, however, stressed the need for the people of the region to give the present administration all necessary supports to encourage it to continue transforming the region.

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Tech companies join challenge on transgender bathroom rules

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PHOTO: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

Apple Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc., EBay Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. are among the technology companies that are backing transgender rights by joining a friend-of-the-court brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding bathroom access.

The move follows opposition from tech companies to a decision this week by President Donald Trump to rescind protections for transgender students. The administration on Wednesday announced the withdrawal of legal guidance put in place by the Obama administration in May that directed schools to let transgender students use bathrooms consistent with their own gender identity.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing a female-born transgender high school student in Virginia, is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a decision that federal law requires the teenager’s school to allow him to use the bathroom of his gender identity. The technology companies are signing on to a brief to be filed next week by the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group that maintains the Trump administration action puts students at risk.

“PayPal is committed to preserving human rights and advancing the principles of inclusion and equality that are at the core of our values,” the company said in a statement. “We seek to defend against actions that violate our values, which is why we have signed this amicus brief with other like-minded companies seeking to uphold critical protections against discrimination.”

Technology companies were among those challenging Trump’s executive order temporarily banning travelers and refugees from seven majority Muslim countries, arguing the move hurt the industry economically by limiting the number of candidates for jobs.

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Hepatitis E outbreak kills 11 in Chad, threatens hundreds more

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A boy stands near a replica of the Hepatitis virus, a part of an awareness. PHOTO:AFP<br />

Hundreds of people in southeastern Chad are at risk of dying from a worsening hepatitis E outbreak which has killed 11 people since September, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday.

Some 885 people in the Salamat region have been treated for symptoms of jaundice, which can indicate hepatitis E, MSF said.

Most, if not all of the patients, are likely to be suffering from hepatitis E, a liver disease which spreads through water contaminated with faeces, the aid group said.

It has recorded 70 cases and 11 deaths, including four pregnant women, to date.

However, the death toll from the outbreak could be higher due to cases which may not have been treated in health facilities, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than 600 MSF staff are working alongside Chad’s health ministry to test for new cases, treat patients and improve water supplies and sanitation in the regional capital of Am Timan.

The aid group said it had also rolled out a large scale chlorination campaign at the 72 water points in Am Timan, and is holding education sessions to explain the importance of hand washing with soap and chlorinated water.

In a statement, MSF’s head of mission in Chad, Rolland Kaya, called for more aid agencies to step in to improve water sanitation in the region amid mounting cases of the disease.

“As a medical organisation, it is not usually MSF’s job to intervene on a large scale in water chlorination activities, but with no other options to help stop the spread of the virus, we are obliged to fill this gap,” Kaya added.

Hepatitis E affects an estimated 20 million people around the world each year, with typical symptoms including jaundice, dark urine and pale stools, abdominal pain and tenderness, nausea and vomiting, fever, and an enlarged tender liver.

For most people, the infection runs its course with a few long-term complications, but the mortality rate for pregnant women is about 25 per cent.

An effective vaccine for the virus is currently only licensed for use in China.

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Zambian women’s day off for periods stokes debate (Read full details)

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PHOTO: Public Radio International

A Zambian law that entitles women to take one day off work a month when they have their period is stirring increasingly fierce debate in a country reluctant to discuss sexual health.

Discreetly called Mother’s Day, the 2015 law — unique in Africa — enables women to be absent from work without notice or a doctor’s note to help them cope with menstrual bleeding, pain and cramps.

“It helps me to manage my physiological needs (and) I think it’s very important that I always endorse it,” Shupe Luchembe, 36, a civil servant in the capital Lusaka and mother of three, told AFP.

“As a woman, it goes without saying that every month I need a special day away from the office to manage myself properly.”

In Zambia, a southern African country of 15.5 million people, discussing sex and personal health is largely taboo and often surrounded by secrecy and misunderstanding.

Many parents prefer not to explain how their children were conceived and born, instead saying they were “brought from the hospital.”

But two years ago, employment law was amended to grant all women — and not just mothers, despite its title — one day of menstrual leave each month after lobbying by campaigners.

“Mother’s Day is a very progressive law,” said Madube Siyauya, of the Non-Governmental Organisations’ Coordinating Council ( NGOCC), an umbrella body of Zambian action groups.

“Some women have heavy flows, some of them have a lot of pain or vomiting.

“So it’s a very important day that allows women to attend to their biological needs and continue their work without being susceptible to discrimination.”

“Zambia is envied because of this law,” added Sara Longwe, also of the NGOCC, one of those that pushed for the law.

– ‘It is abused’ –

But not everyone is a fan. While some Zambian women say the day off is widely abused, the law is also a popular subject for complaint among Zambian men.

“I have never taken Mother’s Day in my life,” Laura Miti, 46, head of the Alliance for Community Action, told AFP.

“I don’t understand why others need it. It is abused. Whenever they have something they need to do, they would rather take the day off than taking leave.

“My sense is that giving half the workforce 12 days (off) extra per year is unproductive. It can’t be productive, especially if you are working in the corporate world.”

Chiselwa Kawanda, 33, a government employee in Lusaka, agrees, saying the law was misguided.

“If I miss a day at work, it means I have to start all over the next day,” she said, adding that, in any case: “You don’t have periods for just one day.”

Zambia’s approach is rare across the world, though Japan has had similar legislation since 1947 and Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea have since followed suit.

In Britain, Coexist, a small Bristol-based non-profit company, is experimenting with flexible hours for menstruating employees.

– ‘No evidence of low productivity’ –

Despite the criticisms, the Zambian government says it stands by the legislation, which has no age limits so also applies to women after the menopause.

“Some women get sick, they are not able to concentrate on their work… so it was agreed that they can stay home without producing any certificate,” Cecilia Mulindeti-Kamanga, of the labour ministry, told AFP.

“Of course there has been some complaints here and there but women go at different times. There is no documentary evidence of low productivity.”

Some Zambian women also allege that employers, particularly in the private sector, put pressure on female workers to not take their Mother’s Day.

Others point out that the vast majority of Zambian women cook, clean, bring up children and care for the elderly at home or toil in the fields with little time off of any description.

The government has also introduced other programmes to support women. This year it started providing free sanitary pads to schoolgirls in rural areas to reduce absenteeism.

Women in Zambia face widespread discrimination in education, law and employment, and the rates of child marriage and death during childbirth are high, especially in underdeveloped rural areas where most people live.

Zambian women’s day off for periods stokes debate

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Divided Koreans pay respect to ancestors

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People bow to an altar at the Imjingak Peace Park in Paju, near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea, on January 28, 2017. On the frozen banks of the Imjin river, South Koreans divided from their families decades ago by war gathered to pay respects to their ancestors. Mostly elderly men — according to tradition, Korean ceremonies for the lunar new year must be carried out by the eldest son — they lined up before an altar piled with offerings of rice cakes, fruit and fish.<br />STR / YONHAP / AFP

On the frozen banks of the Imjin river, South Koreans divided from their families decades ago by war gathered Saturday to pay respects to their ancestors.

Mostly elderly men — according to tradition, Korean ceremonies for the lunar new year must be carried out by the eldest son — they lined up before an altar piled with offerings of rice cakes, fruit and fish.

Shoeless despite the bitter cold, they each placed a flower on the stone, poured an offering of soju — rice wine — and burned incense before prostrating themselves twice, forehead to the floor, and bowing deeply.

Some walked away in tears. Others held ceremonies of their own to pray for their relatives near the fence at Imjingak, just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that has marked the border since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Among them was Seo Jin-Sun, 87, whose father — a policeman during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea — was executed along with his son by Communist forces during the war.

She travelled southwards in 1951 only to discover that her husband — who had fled earlier — was married to another woman.

Park Ju-Seong, her son from her second marriage, said the family came “to pay respects to my mother’s deceased relatives as Imjingak is the closest place to the North that we can get to”.

Every time they visit, he added, “my mother yearns all the more to return home and see her relatives there”.

Millions of family members were separated by the conflict, and most have since died without ever seeing or hearing from their relatives on the other side in the absence of civilian cross-border post and telephone communications.

A series of carefully managed reunions were held in past years, but with relatively few participants, and the last of them was in October 2015.

Relations between the two sides have since worsened as the North stepped up the nuclear and missile programmes that have seen it subjected to heightened United Nations sanctions.

Kim Young-Ki, 80, came to Imjingak, 53 kilometres (33 miles) from Seoul, to pay respects to his grandfather, who is buried in his home town of Kaesong, just north of the border.

Kim fled the city, along with his six siblings, parents and grandmother when South Korean and UN troops retreated in the face of a Chinese offensive in 1951. “Whenever national holidays come around, I am haunted by the memory of my old home,” he told AFP.

“I myself shut and locked the gate door,” he said. “If I were put in Kaesong I would be able to find it quite easily. All the roads and back alleys are so vivid in my memory.”

A few metres away from the site of Saturday’s ceremony, the rusting hulk of a steam engine stood where it came under attack in 1950. Pock-marked with the holes of 1,020 bullets, a panel describes it as “a symbol of the tragic history of the division into North and South Korea”.

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Why FG delays payment of accrued pension benefits to retirees (Read full details)

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Pensioners

The Federal Government is currently unable to meet its obligation to its retirees because it cannot cash back the Federal Government Retirement Benefits Bonds currently sitting at the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Findings by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) show that the Federal Government is currently owing its former workers accrued rights from January 2016
till date.

Accrued pension rights is the term used to describe what the Federal Government owes its workers who have been in service before the commencement of the Pension Reform Act, 2004.

All Federal Government workers were “retired” and then reemployed to join the service and their pension funded monthly according to the Pension Reform Act, 2004.

The money the Federal Government now owes its workers before the commencement of the act is recognised in form of an amount acknowledged through the issuance of Federal Government Retirement Benefits Bonds.

Upon retirement of an employee, the bonds are to be liquidated and added to the balance of the retirement savings account of an employee to get the total amount he or she is entitled to.

To ensure that government settles backlog of accrued rights, PFAs are not allowed to give access to their retirement savings until the Federal Government releases the accrued rights component.

This means that a retiree cannot access his or her Retirement Savings Account (RSA) through the Pension Funds Administrators without the accrued pension rights component.

So for Public Service Workers who migrated to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in 2004, shortly before they retired, they were entitled to two components of retirement benefits. That is the contributions accumulated in their RSA and their accrued right from the time they joined the service to the time they migrated to CPS.

A source at the office of the Accountant General of the Federation that due to the present economic challenges, the government was finding it difficult to cash back the bonds.

It said that the setback was in the liquidation of the bonds issued by the DMO and domiciled at CBN. “Even from the budgetary stage, what is budgeted for Pension is not enough to meet the needs even if it’s cash backed 100 per cent, so it’s a problem.

“Budget Office has to make provisions for it then we at AGF can pay. But I can tell you that N7 billion was paid to PENCOM at the end of December,” the source said.

Also, a source at PENCOM told NAN that a lot of retirees blamed the commission because they did not understand that the funds were not managed by the
commission, thus its not its fault. He clarified that only people that worked for the Fedaral Government before 2004 had such set back, thus it did not affect the private sector retirees.

“Whenever we get the money, we compile our list and give the names and money to the PFAs. “The simple truth is that it is the Federal Government that is delaying the payment of accrued rights of retirees.

“Initially we were owing from October 2016, but some funds were released recently and two weeks ago we were able to pay workers that retired from November to December 2016,” the source said.

The source revealed that the biggest challenge right now was not just having the bonds cash backed, but rather, how to calculate the accrued pension a retiree was owed.

He said that a worker was “retired” at the level he or she was as at 2004 and that whatever was determined to be the person’s accrued pension rights was then converted to bonds which was expected to mature when a worker retired.

The source said the bonds were supposed to yield interest and boost the expected amount, yet no significant interest was reflected in the amount remitted for each retiree. The source said each retiree was paid exactly or a little more than what was determined to be his accrued rights as at June 2004.

Mr Mohammed Julde, who worked with the Ministry of Education from 1984 to 2016, called on the Federal Government to heed the cry of its former workers. He said it was not fair for them to suffer this after judiciously serving in the public service.

He urged public servants still in service in key departments to assist in resolving the issue as it affected every government worker that had been in the employment of the Federal Government before 2004.

Why FG delays payment of accrued pension benefits to retirees

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