EFCC finds N800m in civil servant’s account

By EMMAN   OVUAKPORIE
ABUJA—THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, operatives have found over N800 million in the account of a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Transport, Mrs Phiana Chidi, which was believed to be proceeds from pension funds that she once managed in the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, OHCSF, before she was transferred.

It was reliably gathered, yesterday, that the Deputy Director who was apprehended by the agency’s operatives on Saturday is already spilling the beans during interrogations.

It was learnt that the suspect kept the money which was in naira and dollars denominations in one of the old generation banks. In one of the accounts, she had $2 million, and  N500 million in another account, using Pam Investments Ltd as front while she was the sole signatory to both accounts.

Before Chidi was moved to the Transport Ministry, she was the Deputy Director, Finance and Administration, managing the pension scheme under the OHCSF

It was also alleged that Chidi awarded and signed payments of fictitious contracts, pensioners’ stipends, bogus and spurious allowances to staff worth billions without following due process.

It would be recalled that the Head of Service, HOS, Prof. Oladapo Afolabi, had two weeks ago visited the chairman of the anti-graft agency, Mrs Farida Waziri and pleaded that new pensioners had graduated into the pension scheme and her assistance was urgently needed to help sanitise the scheme.

He had explained that during his predecessor’s reign, the commission helped his office to recover over N1.2 billion monthly and pleaded that “as we enroll new pensioners please assist us with those your operatives that did the wonderful job in the past.”

Waziri had then vowed to help fish out any culprit as she was ready to release her operatives to come to their rescue.

According to the source the outcome of that promise is the arrest of Chidi last week Saturday over alleged misappropriation of pensioners’ money.

The source further explained that “this is just a tip of the iceberg as more civil servants who built mansions in the Federal Capital Territory without the necessary income to back it up will soon start singing different tunes as we have placed them under our watch list.”

When contacted, Head, Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Babafemi confirmed that Mrs Chidi was actually in the custody of the agency.