The National Pension Commission said on Monday that it acted within its powers by taking over the affairs of First Guarantee Pension Limited.
It said that the allegation by the promoter of the company, Mr. Chidi Duru, that the FGPL was being mismanaged was untrue.
PenCom had in August 2011 taken over the management of the FGPL, citing incessant shareholder squabbles and several issues of adverse corporate governance in the Pension Fund Administrator.
The commission thereafter constituted an Interim Management Committee to superintend over the affairs of the company.
Duru told journalists on Sunday that no dividend had been paid to shareholders in the last five years, despite the accumulation of funds in the account of the company.
He had said, “The FGPL has not held any AGM since it was taken over by Pencom about five years ago. The shareholders of the FGPL are greatly concerned about the state of affairs of the company as no audited account has been rendered to the shareholders in the last five years during which PenCom has maintained imperial dominance over the firm.”
But responding to the claims, the Head of Communications, PenCom, Mr. Emeka Onuorah, said in an interview with our correspondent on Monday that the commission acted in line with its regulatory powers in safeguarding the assets of pension contributors.
He stated that the matter was under litigation and as such the commission would not want to comment much on it.
“PenCom took over the affairs of the company in 2011 based on the powers conferred on it by the Pension Reform Act and in exercise of its statutory mandate of protecting the pension fund assets,” Onuorah said.
Also responding to the allegation by Duru that the company had been mismanaged since the commission took over, the Interim Chairman of the PenCom-constituted management team of the FGPL, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim, told our correspondent in an interview on Monday that the claim was untrue.
He said the management team appointed by PenCom had been able to return the company to profitability from the negative position it met it five years ago.
