Benue: Probe Panel Uncovers Diversion Of N18.7bn Teachers’ Salaries In ‘Secret’ First Bank Account

See where Benue teachers’ salaries are oh, ha people need to fear God.
How much do these family men and women earn? Yet their salaries are being
diverted. What some of these government officials don’t know is that, families
are being ruined when salaries are diverted, destinies are changed. Just
imagine a girl who just got admission into school, and her father has promised
to pay her acceptance fee with part of his salary, and alas the money was diverted
and he couldn’t pay. And there’s a man by the corner telling her to come and
collect the money, but in return, she must give him his body, not wanting to spend
another extra year at home and because all her friends are already in school,
she does it behind her father’s back, and collects the money. At the long run,
she got pregnant. Hasn’t someone changed the poor little girl’s destiny? The
report after the cut;

The Justice Elizabeth Kpojime Commission of Inquiry which resumed sitting
at the Makurdi High Court 4 this week has uncovered the diversion of
N18.7billion by the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.

Testifying before the commission, permanent secretary of the Bureau, Mr.
Emmanuel Ikpe who could not give satisfactory explanation as to the owner of
the bank account, appealed to the commission to invite the former special
adviser of the Bureau during the period under investigation, Mr. Solomon Wombo
and the former permanent secretary, Mr. Asen Sambe, to give the required
clarifications.

Ikpe said N1.8 billion monthly salaries of primary school teachers owed
between October 2013, and June 2014, was lodged in the fixed deposit account
number 1017993231 with First Bank.

He further admitted that the Bureau made payments between January and
May, 2015 to the tune of N18.7billion into the unknown account at First Bank,
Makurdi and added that officials of the bank refused to give the Bureau details
of the account when the Director of Finance and Administration approached them.

When the Commission demanded to know who from the Bureau made the payment
of N4.6 billion in May and N5 billion in June last year among others, Mr. Ikpe
said the then Accountant, Mr. Isaiah Ipevnor, and the then Permanent Secretary,
Mr. Sambe who was the accounting officer, were in the best position to explain.

On why the sum of N3.4 million was being paid monthly by the Bureau to a
contractor, Ameh Technology, Mr. Ikpe explained that the Bureau had entered a
contractual agreement with the company for the supply and maintenance of
generating plants in the 23 local government areas of the state.

Leadership