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Mr Sunday Musa, the tenth witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has explained how former Plateau governor, David Jonah Jang deceived the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to secure N2 billion loan.
In presence of Justice Christy Dabup of the Plateau High Court on Thursday, the witness said the loan was for the Plateau State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (PLASMEDA).
Led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Jacob SAN, Musa said PLASMEDA was non-existent at the time the loan request was made.
According to him, the fund was not utilized for the purpose for which it was obtained.
“Investigation revealed that the letter sent by the 1st defendant to CBN was deceit, because there was no office for PLASMEDA, nor was anybody employed as a staff.
” In the course of our investigation, our findings showed that the N2billion was moved from the Project 1 account to the Office of the Secretary to the State Government account.
“It was spent for classified expenditure which is the pure diversion of public funds,” he added.
The witness told the Court that the OSSG account witnessed massive withdrawals by the 2nd defendant.
“This account, in 2014 – 2015, the withdrawal rose to N350 million – N400 million daily in N10 million tranches. The account was opened as soon as the 1st defendant became the Governor of Plateau State and billions of Naira passed through that account, the statement of account is before this Court”.
PW10 further revealed that funds, which were approved for the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, were never utilized for the stated purposes as teachers’ salaries were not paid for more than 10 months.
The account statements of former Governor Jang with Zenith Bank, FCMB and Standard Chartered Bank, which indicated suspicious transactions from the Plateau State account with Zenith Bank (Plateau Project 1), were tendered in evidence and admitted as Exhibits P47, P48 and P49.
Musa further told the court that the investigation into Jang’s administration of Plateau State was triggered by a petition in 2014 from a civil society organization, Civil Society Against Corruption and signed by one Olanrewaju Suraj The petition was entitled ‘Allegation of Gross Misconduct to the tune of N20 billion’. He said other allegations included contract scam, misappropriation and mismanagement of Plateau State Government funds. He added that another petition from the Plateau Patriotic Front was attached by CSAC.
Jang is now a senator, representing Plateau North.