Corruption!! Two civil servants in Ekiti state have been arrested by the police over 7m Naira fraud...
Two civil servants in Ekiti State have been handed over to the police after it was discovered that N7 million was missing from the state's Central Medical store.
The two individuals handed over to the police are Mr. Bello Olajide and Mrs. Cecilia Akinleye, a grade level 10 officer and grade level 9 Officer respectively. The two were handed over to the police following a directive by Governor Ayo Fayose who requested for a thorough investigation into the matter.
An audit report of the state's Medical Store revealed that money to the tune of N7 million was missing. Further investigation pointed to two individuals directly incharge of the money - the accountant and cashier. Akinyele, the cashier and prime suspect in the case had accused Olajide, the accountant, of collecting the missing money from her on various dates starting from April this year.
Olajide denied any involvement, saying he never collected any money from Akinyele. Akinyele said she started giving Olajide money from the office purse few days after her posting as the cashier. She even informed her co-worker, Mrs. Adekemi Ojuawo about the matter, that the boss asked her to borrow him money from the agency's purse.
“Mrs Ojuawo warned me against doing this, but because he is my boss, when he requested for the money again, I obliged him. I know this is against civil service rule. The first money he took from me was N100,000; that was on April 16, 2015. He collected money from me 36 times. The least he took was N50,000 and the highest was N300,000,” she said.
She also alleged that Olajide sometimes collected drugs on credit from the store and asked her to write official receipt to cover the payment.
Olajide denied ever taking money from the woman, saying some of the dates listed by Akinleye, were public holidays like May 29, 2015.
But, Akinleye replied that Olajide called her a day before that to go give him the money on Democracy Day, somewhere in Ado-Ekiti. Olajide defended himself saying that he was on leave from early May to June this year and that he could not have collected any money from her since he didn't come to work during those period. He also said he discovered that money was missing when he was mandated to audit the agency's account after he resumed work.
He also said he drew the attention of Akinleye to the missing money and that for three weeks, Akinleye was dodging the issue, so he had to report to his superior.
Commenting on the matter, officials of the Ministry of Health, including general manager of the store and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr Folake Olomojobi, said it was because the people were not complying with existing rule of paying all daily proceeds to the banks that the fraud occurred.
The suspects have been handed over to the Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command, Etop John James.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Alberto Adeyemi, said the police are still investigating the matter.