The Oyo State Government on Wednesday arraigned two workers in the state civil service commission before the state’s magistrate court for using fictitious names to collect multiple salaries to the tune of N5.84m.
One of the suspects, Oluwaseun Adegoke, was alleged to have collected eight month salaries of a deceased civil servant, Ogunbiyi Tunmise and that of another retired civil servant.
The two workers were among the 16,230 workers suspected to have been involved in defrauding the state government to the tune of about N300m through multiple salaries collection.
They were discovered after a verification of the state workforce was carried out this year.
While some of the workers were cleared of any wrong doing, a good number of them were found culpable.
However, the state Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Adetunji Gbadegesin, told the court that the state was only able to apprehend the two, while others were still at large.
One of the suspects, Ojo Olanrewaju, was accused of defrauding the state to the tune of N4.71m through illegal collection of seven different salaries between February 2014 and February 2015.
In one of the charges against him, Olanrewaju was alleged to have collected more than N443,000 through a Stanbic Bank account as November 2015 salary, using a fictitious name, Olabode Esther.
He was also alleged to have received N438,731 in two batches between September 23 and 28, 2015 as May and June salaries of the same year, using a non-existing officer’s name.
In granting the bail application pleaded on behalf of Adegoke by his counsel, Akeem Agbaje, Magistrate A.F. Richard put the bail condition at N2m and two sureties, one of whom must be a civil servant.
However, Magistrate A.A Adebisi, granted Olanrewaju bail application to the sum of N10m and three sureties. According to the magistrate one of the sureties must have a landed property worth N10m.
One of the charges read, “Between July 4 and September 9, 2014, Olanrewaju illegally and fraudulently received in three quick successions the sum of N721,986 as salaries for the months of July, August and September, 2014 through a Stanbic IBTC account. The offence is punishable under Section 390 (5) of the Criminal Code, Cap 38, Vol. 11 Laws of Oyo State, 2000.”
The other suspect, Adegoke, was arraigned for eight count charges, which involved around N1.13m. Among the tricks used in collecting the money over a period of time, Adegoke used the name of several National Youth Service Corps members, drawing N4,000 in each of their names monthly.
One of the count against him read, “Adegoke, being an officer of the Oyo State Government, between April and November 2015, illegally and fraudulently received on a monthly basis the sum of N37,565 as monthly salary in the name of one Lawal Mudashiru, a retired civil servant through a Skye Bank account number 3011638515 and with account name Oluwaseun Adegoke. The total amount collected within the period amounted to N300, 524.088.”
The accused also collected large sums of money in salaries in the names of Badmus Oluwatoyin, Ayodeji Adenike, Adebisis Mosobalaje, Abiona Bukola and Akande Ololade. Both accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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