The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
has questioned the Director General and 24 other
officials of a Federal Government parastatal under
the Foreign Affairs Ministry over the questionable
withdrawal of the sum of $219,000.00 (about N66
million) from the account of the Nigerian Technical
Cooperation Fund, NTCF.
has questioned the Director General and 24 other
officials of a Federal Government parastatal under
the Foreign Affairs Ministry over the questionable
withdrawal of the sum of $219,000.00 (about N66
million) from the account of the Nigerian Technical
Cooperation Fund, NTCF.
The money, which was meant to provide some
development projects for some African countries in
the 2013 fiscal year, is jointly managed by the
African Development Bank and the NTCF and
domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Vanguard learnt that the head of the parastatal, who
is from Borno State, connived with 24 other Nigerian
officials in the parastatal and illegally siphoned the
amount for personal use, thereby triggering petitions
to the EFCC from aggrieved insider staff of the
agency.
Based on the series of petitions fired by insiders,
the EFCC immediately dispatched operatives, who
posed as auditors and spend days to scrutinise the
accounts of the agency.
“It was clear to use that the money in question had
been withdrawn by the officials but what we want to
know is on what the money was used for,” one of
the sources close to the investigation, told our
correspondent in Abuja.
“Having established a prima facie case of illegal
withdrawal, we invited the DG and the 24 staff and
they were interrogated between Tuesday and
Thursday and all of them made useful statements to
the commission.
“They were all admitted to administrative bail having
accepted to refund the money to the last kobo and
we have asked them to report back on Thursday,”
an EFCC source confirmed llast night.
It was however gathered that some influential
politicians from Borno State, where the DG hails
from, have attempted to prevail on the EFCC to
tamper justice with mercy and grant the man what
they term “soft landing
