The Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, on May 3, 2017 presented two more witnesses in the
trial of Mahmud Deji Sambo and Bukar Musti, both former Assistant Director and
Chief Accountant respectively of the
University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, UMTH, Borno State. They are standing
trial for defrauding the hospital to the tune of N58 million.
One of the witness, Garba
Dan-Fulani, Head, UMTH’s Department of Finance and Accounts, revealed how
variations observed in the account books of the teaching hospital, led to
investigation of the defendants.
While being led in evidence
by prosecution counsel, Khalid Sanusi, he said, “The variation order is an
authority to effect payment of salaries, allowances, new employees, demotions
or promotions, and when the accountant finishes raising a voucher for payment,
I will cross-check, if errors are found I will not sign.”
He added that: “If there
are irregularities I will call the attention of the accountant to it, and we
will sit together to see whether the irregularities were not backed by
Variation Order, which means the Payment Voucher becomes fraudulent, and these
irregularities may be insertion, addition or subtraction”.
He further stated that if
such insertions were eventually accommodated, the Assistant Director of Finance
had to report to the management in order to raise Variation Order to
accommodate the insertion done by Chief Accountant Salary.
Testifying as the 12th
prosecution witness, Surajo Abdullahi, an EFCC operative, told the court that
investigation into the alleged fraud began in 2010, after a petition was
received from Afri Bank.
He said: “Sometime in
September 2010, a petition was sent to my team written by Afri Bank, in which
it was alleged that some suspicious transactions always took place whenever
monthly salaries were paid by UMTH.
“These included insertions
of ghost workers into the payroll system of UMTH, inflation of salaries and
allowances of some staff by the first defendant for onward transmission to the
second defendant.”
He further told the court
that, the defendants operated illegal bank accounts, which were used to carry
out the fraudulent transactions. According to Abdullahi, “whenever a draft was
prepared for monthly salary by the payroll section under the watch of Sambo, he
would withhold it and increase the grand total of other personnel for it to be
different, which will then be taken to Audit Department for vetting.”
He further noted that the
Head of the Department, Haruna Katangana, (who is also a defendant in another
fraud case), was part of the deal.
He said: “Katangana will
receive his own share of the overstated salary, without altering the draft, and
he will return same unchanged to Musti, who is tasked with preparing the
payment mandate.”
The prosecution afterwards
tendered the petition received from the bank as evidence. Justice Salihu,
admitted them in evidence as exhibit L.
However, the defence
counsels raised objection to the admissibility of the statements of the two
defendants, which the prosecution sought to tender, arguing that they were
coerced and threatened into making the statements.
Subsequently, Justice
Salihu adjourned to May 24, 2017 for the commencement of a trial-within-trial.
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