N84bn fraud: Senate summons NSTIF ex-chair, MDs over missing documents
By Benjamin Arida://
Following the alleged misappropriation of N84billion by the officials of the the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, the Senate has summoned a former chairman and two Managing Directors of the agency over the missing of some financial documents related to the whooping amount.
The former chairman of the Fund expected to appear before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts are: Ngozi Olejeme, and the erstwhile managing directors, Alhaji Umar Munir Abubakar and Adebayo Somefun.
The committee, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South), decided to invite them following the failure of the officials of NSITF to respond to the queries from the Office of Auditor General for the Federation, OAuGF over financial infractions in the Fund.
Out of 50 queries of the Auditor General for the Federation, AuGF, the committee was able to establish that N84billion has been misappropriated by the officials of the agency.
At the resumption of the investigation on the Auditor General queries last week, the committee discovered that the agency was unable to present any financial document relating to the issue raised by the committee.
The newly appointed, Executive Director Finance and Investment in the NSITF, Mrs. Caroline Akinwale specifically told the lawmakers that there is no available documents about the transactions in question and that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is also in court with some of the former Managing Directors involved in the financial infractions.
Chairman of the Senate panel, however, directed the agency to list the issue that they have documents of it and the issue currently with the anti-graft agency.
Senator Urhoghide also ordered for invitations of the former managing directors to come and give account of what transpired under their administrations.
He said: “We can no longer take excuse that there is no record for the mentioned financial transactions, go back to your office and look for it and we are also inviting the formers managing directors of the NSTIF. They are to appear before us on Tuesday.”
The chairman had revealed at the end of first day of investigative hearing that 12 out of 50 queries investigated so far by the committee in excess of N84billion was misappropriated, lamenting that “it’s unfortunate that in the place of four years, they depleted our resources, just few human beings who are mindless.”
He added that it is unfortunate that the management of NSTIF and board of Fund allegedly colluded between 2012 and 2017 to defraud it.
“They are all guilty, they are implicated and they stole the place dry. The agency is most defiant and most nutritious,” he submitted.