PENSION FRAUD: DIRECTOR WITHDREW N250M IN A DAY –EFCC

303 cheques cashed

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has told a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court that a Director of Public Pensions in the police pension office, Mrs. Veronica Ulonma Onyegbulam,withdrew a whopping amount of over N250 million from a certain branch of First Bank Nigeria Plc.
The said withdrawal was alleged to be against a circular earlier issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the effect that all transactions on government accounts should be conducted electronically, and where transactions exceed the N5million “thresholds”, such should be reported to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).
This revelation was made yesterday by EFCC’s star witness, Mr. Amoni Alabi, who is a Senior Manager and Head of Customer Complaints and Investigations at the Internal Audit department of First Bank.

He told the court that the bank’s staff, who cleared the cheques, claimed ignorance of the CBN circular. Alabi, who gave evidence for the anti-corruption agency, stated that Mrs. Onyegbulam, perpetrated the alleged irregularity through 303 cheques, which she “cashed” and accordingly made the huge withdrawals, at separate intervals on January 9, 2009.
It was further disclosed that Mrs. Onyegbulam, had at other instances, made withdrawals using a minimum of 250 cheques, paid “between morning and close of business.”
Specifically, the court was told that the fourth accused person came for the huge amount at the close of banking business “with heavy security”, even as the bank had to “source for funds”, to make up for such mind-boggling withdrawal. He also said that upon request by the EFCC for relevant information to conclude its investigations,the bank forwarded some documents, including “10 original cheques signed by a permanent secretary,who is also standing trial, Mr. Atiku Abubakar Kigo.”
On how he came to the astonishing discoveries,the star witness said,”I put the account number on the cheques into the computer, to generate account statements from August 2007 to July 2011; I now reconciled the hard copy with the transactions from the computer.”
Consequent upon the tendering of photocopies of all the cheques used in the transactions,and the dismissal of separate objections raised by all the defence counsel, trial judge, Justice Hussein Baba Yusuf, admitted 9 volumes of the aforesaid documents. The witness testified thus: “In January,2009, V.U Onyegbulam, brought the 303 cheques; withdrawals were made from the police pension account. “There were instances of a minimum of 250 cheques paid between morning and close of business.
She (Onyegbula) came back aftter close of business to collect the money with heavy security. The bank had to source for funds.
“In the course of investigation, we found out that so many cheques were issued on the police pension account; the beneficiary of those cheques are Director of Public Pensions, one V.O , who happened to be the one that came to cash on their behalf. “We found out that more than 200 cheques were paid daily.
These cheques were done in various transactions. “The pattern of withdrawal did not change from 2009 to 2011,” he stated.

Source: National Mirror