Governor Samuel Ortom / Facebook
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has linked Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom with an alleged fraud of N22bn.
This allegation was revealed in a report after an investigation by the anti-graft body.
The report also shows that 21 members of the Benue State House of Assembly are being investigated for allegedly diverting N375m for procurement of vehicles for oversight functions.
The allegations are contained in a report of an investigation which began in 2016 but was made available on Monday.
“We investigated four bank accounts belonging to two Benue State Government’s agencies,” the report read in part.
“The first agency is the Benue State Government House which has an account in UBA with number 1017348051 and another account in GTB with number 0027952907.
“These accounts received N1, 916, 635, 206 from the state’s allocation between June 30, 2015, and March 2018.
“The second government agency is the Bureau of Internal Affairs and Special Services. The agency has an account with UBA with number 1007540119 and a First Bank account with number 2023788057.
“Between the same period, the accounts were credited with N19, 468, 951, 590 from the Benue State allocation.”
The report added that “Investigations revealed that N19bn was withdrawn by one Oliver Ntom, a cashier.
“Sometimes, in a day, he would withdraw as high as N500m by cashing several cheques worth N10m each.
“The permanent secretary upon interrogation said anytime security agencies requested funds, he would approach Governor Ortom who would ask him to write a memo to that effect. The permanent secretary would write and the governor would approve the money.
“The permanent secretary said the funds are usually given to six security agencies. He said the highest that any security agency gets is N10m a month while the least any of the agencies gets is N5m a month.
“He said after the money has been released, the governor usually orders that the memo be torn to pieces.
“It is important to note that if a total of N60m is given to all the security agencies collectively every month as claimed by the permanent secretary, it cannot amount to half of N19bn in three years.”
The commission noted that the funds being spent were not in the State budget.