Lafia—Nasarawa State Universal Basic Education Board, NASUBEB, yesterday said it had uncovered over N24.4 million fraud in the payment of teachers’ salaries between August and September this year.

Executive Chairman of the Board, Malam Abdulkarim Mohammed disclosed this in Lafia at a meeting with state executive members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT.

He explained that the fraud was uncovered in 12 local government and development areas of the state by a committee set up by the board to verify the teachers’ wage bill.

According to him, Lafia-East Development Area had the highest difference of over N12.3 million in their September records, while Akwanga had the least with N44, 531.

Other affected areas include; Awe with N2.3 million; Panda N4.1m; Ekye N3.2m; Keffi N539,026; Kokona N195,000 and Dedere with N543,123.
The rest were Loko N280,124; Agidi N110,332; Gadabuke N359,614 and Umuaisha with a difference of N212,195.
He said the Education Secretaries of the affected areas had been summoned to the board for explanation concerning the huge difference in their wage bill in just one month.

The chairman said that the board had put in place measures to begin electronic payment of teachers’ salaries as from October, to check such anomalies and end delays in the payment.

Mohammed, therefore, called for the support and partnership of the NUT in order to sanitise the system of corruption.

He pledged that the board would provide the enabling environment for teachers to offer their best at all times.