The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday October 23, 2019, presented the 14th prosecution witness 14 (PW14), a Union Bank branch manager, Adesegun Timothy, against the former Head of Service (HoS), Stephen Oronsanye and three others in the alleged N2billion fraud levelled against them by the Commission.
The EFCC is prosecuting Oronsanye alongside Osarenkhoe Afe, managing director, Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, the company and one other before Justice I E Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja for their alleged complicity in several contract award scams during Oronsanye’s tenure as HoS.
Led in evidence at the resumed sitting, by prosecution counsel, O. A. Atolagbe, Timothy, whose job schedule as the bank manager included overseeing all banking activities on a day-to-day basis stated that “In 2016, the bank provided statement of accounts, mandates, certificate of verification to the EFCC and this was duly stamped by the bank in respect to the pension payment account of the Office of the Head of Service.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Atolagbe presented the prosecution witness 13 (PW13), Mr. Eric Chukwu Emeka, a retired director in the Audit Department of the Office of the Head of Service, who narrated how the then Auditor General of the Federation mandated his department to carry out an investigative audit report from 2005 to 2010, which unearthed a can of worms against the Office of the HoS.
The witness told the court that while performing the exercise on the pension payment accounts, he discovered several irregularities, including multiple beneficiaries, without cash books, nor payment narrative on bank transfers disbursed to beneficiaries.
“Our report highlighted this grave error and we brought this to the attention to the Auditor General. While recommendations were made, we held that the Office of the Head of Service had a lot of irregularities on the monthly pension payments and suggested that this should be addressed,” he said.
“We did not see any payment that reflected the payment for biometric capture in the 36 states and there were many grey areas on payments made to the tune of N2billion. We experienced several hiccups while demanding support documents from the accounts department and realized that several payment vouchers and files were missing. The files processed ought to be sequential but sometimes there could only be one or two files for a certain payment for the entire year.”
Mr. Emeka further stated that there were gaps in the due processes, which they identified and recommended in their overall report.
He told the court that huge financial misappropriations were observed and recorded in the detailed report, which was thereafter submitted and certified by the Auditor General.
Atolagbe, the 14th witness sought to tender the report but Oronsanye’s counsel, Joe Agi SAN, and Oluwole Aladedoye, counsel for Afe and Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, objected to the admissibility of the document, stating that the said documents were rejected by the former trial judge for lack of credibility.
However, Justice Ekwo admitted the special investigative audit report on the pension accounts and a letter from the Auditor General, that authorised the audit exercise.
After the 496 pages document was tendered by the prosecution on Wednesday, October 23, 2019, the Judge adjourned the matter till December 2, 3 and 4, 2019, for continuation of trial.
