Benue Point out governor, Samuel Ortom, has been the issue of a probe by the Economic and Economical Crimes Fee (EFCC) as he is been joined to an alleged fraud to the tune of N22 billion.
In accordance to a report by The Punch, the
investigation into the governor’s managing of the fund in concern
started off in 2016, but wasn’t produced community until Monday, July
30, 2018, hardly a 7 days after Ortom dumped the ruling All Progressives’ Congress (APC) for the People’s Democratic Occasion (PDP).
According to the report, Ortom ordered the withdrawal
of N21.3bn from 4 authorities accounts among June 30, 2015 and March
2018. Even nevertheless about N19 billion was earmarked to be paid to
six protection businesses that experienced been deployed to tackle the
incessant clashes among herdsmen and farmers in the condition, the EFCC
disclosed that only N3 billion was compensated with the rest unaccounted
for.
The report go through, “We investigated four bank
accounts belonging to two Benue Condition Government’s agencies. The to
start with agency is the Benue State Government Property which has an
account in UBA with quantity 1017348051 and a different account in GTB
with quantity 0027952907. These accounts obtained N1,916,635, 206 from
the state’s allocation amongst June 30, 2015 and March 2018.
“The second federal government agency is the
Bureau of Inside Affairs and Exclusive Solutions. The company has an
account with UBA with number 1007540119 and a Initially Bank account
with range 2023788057. Amongst the similar period, the accounts had been
credited with N19,468, 951,590 from the Benue State allocation.
“Investigations unveiled that N19bn was withdrawn
by just one Oliver Ntom, a cashier. At times, in a working day, he
would withdraw as superior as N500m by cashing a number of cheques worth
N10m each.
“The long lasting secretary on interrogation
stated anytime stability businesses asked for funds, he would approach
Governor Ortom who would ask him to produce a memo to that outcome. The
long lasting secretary would compose and the governor would approve the
revenue.
“The long term secretary claimed the cash are
commonly presented to 6 security businesses. He mentioned the best that
any security agency receives is N10m a month although the the very least
any of the organizations gets is N5m a month.
“He said just after the money has been produced,
the governor ordinarily orders that the memo be torn to pieces. It is
important to observe that if a total of N60m is provided to all the
security organizations collectively just about every thirty day period
as claimed by the everlasting secretary, it are not able to sum to fifty
percent of N19bn in a few years.”
The EFCC pointed out that the cash becoming invested
have been not in the finances of the Benue Point out Federal government
in the period of time less than evaluate.
Ortom also cheated on salaries – EFCC
The EFCC investigation also discovered that Governor
Ortom unsuccessful to pay back salaries even with withdrawing the sum of
N1.3 billion for that function from the Joint State Regional Government
Account.
“Investigations revealed that one John Bako, a
member of 1 of the security outfits in Benue, withdrew N28m when a
person Andooi Festus, considered to be a cashier from the Bureau of
Nearby Authorities and Chieftaincy Affairs withdrew N1.3bn. They have
been invited,” the report disclosed.
21 Benue lawmakers also under probe
The EFCC also disclosed to The Punch that 21 users of
the 30-member Benue Condition House of Assembly are underneath
investigation for allegedly diverting N375 million intended for the
procurement of automobiles that would be utilized for oversight
features.
The report noted, “About 21 of the lawmakers are
underneath probe. However, 25 of the lawmakers have returned all the
revenue they gained which provides up to N245 million. 4 other folks
have failed to return the remaining sum of N31m.”
The Benue State govt experienced awarded a contract
worthy of N417 million (N375 million just after tax) to Mia-3 Nigeria
Minimal to procure 30 Prado TXL cars for the lawmakers.
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