The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday October
\n23, 2019, presented the 14th prosecution witness 14 (PW14), a Union Bank
\nbranch manager,\u00a0 Adesegun Timothy, against the former Head of Service
\n(HoS), Stephen Oronsanye and three others in the alleged N2billion fraud
\nlevelled against them by the Commission.<\/p>\n
The EFCC is prosecuting Oronsanye alongside Osarenkhoe Afe, managing
\ndirector, Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, the company and one
\nother before Justice I E Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja for their
\nalleged complicity in several contract award scams during Oronsanye’s
\ntenure as HoS.<\/p>\n
Led in evidence at the resumed sitting, by prosecution counsel, O. A.
\nAtolagbe, Timothy, whose job schedule as the bank manager included
\noverseeing all banking activities on a day-to-day basis stated that “In
\n2016, the bank provided statement of accounts, mandates, certificate of
\nverification to the EFCC and this was duly stamped by the bank in
\nrespect to the pension payment account of the Office of the Head of
\nService.”<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, Atolagbe presented the prosecution witness 13
\n(PW13), Mr. Eric Chukwu Emeka, a retired director in the Audit
\nDepartment of the Office of the Head of Service, who\u00a0 narrated how the
\nthen Auditor General of the Federation mandated his department to carry
\nout an investigative audit report from 2005 to 2010, which unearthed a
\ncan of worms against the Office of the HoS.<\/p>\n
The witness told the court that while performing the exercise on the
\npension payment accounts, he discovered several irregularities,
\nincluding multiple beneficiaries, without cash books, nor payment
\nnarrative on bank transfers disbursed to beneficiaries.<\/p>\n
“Our report highlighted this grave error and we brought this to the
\nattention to the Auditor General. While recommendations were made, we
\nheld that the Office of the Head of Service had a lot of irregularities
\non the monthly pension payments and suggested that this should be
\naddressed,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We did not see any payment that reflected the payment for biometric
\ncapture in the 36 states and there were many grey areas on payments made
\nto the tune of N2billion. We experienced several hiccups while demanding
\nsupport documents from the accounts department and realized that several
\npayment vouchers and files were missing. The files processed ought to be
\nsequential but sometimes there could only be one or two files for a
\ncertain payment for the entire year.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Emeka further stated that there were gaps in the due processes,
\nwhich they identified and recommended in their overall report.<\/p>\n
He told the court that huge financial misappropriations were observed
\nand recorded in the detailed report, which was thereafter submitted and
\ncertified by the Auditor General.<\/p>\n
Atolagbe, the 14th witness sought to tender the report but Oronsanye’s
\ncounsel, Joe Agi SAN, and Oluwole Aladedoye, counsel for Afe and
\nFredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, objected to the admissibility
\nof the document, stating that the said documents were rejected by the
\nformer trial judge for lack of credibility.<\/p>\n
However, Justice Ekwo admitted the special investigative audit report on
\nthe pension accounts and a letter from the Auditor General, that
\nauthorised the audit exercise.<\/p>\n
After the 496 pages document\u00a0 was tendered by the prosecution on
\nWednesday, October 23, 2019, the Judge adjourned the matter till
\nDecember 2, 3 and 4, 2019, for continuation of trial.<\/p>\n
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday October 23, 2019, presented the 14th prosecution witness 14 (PW14), a Union Bank branch manager,\u00a0 Adesegun Timothy, against the former Head…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-news"],"yoast_head":"\n