EFCC witness tells court how exaccountant, others stole pension funds

The trial of Tahir
Abdullahi Garba, a Chief
accountant in the Pension
Office of the Office of
the Head of Service of
the Federation, whose
company, Charo Bureau
De Change Limited was
allegedly used to siphon
stolen pension funds,
continued yesterday
before Justice Gabriel
Kolawole of the Federal
High Court, Abuja.
Garba is being
prosecuted by the
Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission,
EFCC alongside his
company, Charo Bureau
De Change Limited on a
23-count charge of fraud
to the tune of N514.9m,
allegedly stolen from the
Pension Account, Office
of the Head of Service of
the Federation.
Yesterday, the third
prosecution witness,
PW3, Mohammed Goji,
who is also an operative
with the Commission
told the court of how
ghost pensioners were
discovered during the
joint task team exercise
carried out in the Pension
Office for bio-metric
enrolment of pensioners.
Led in evidence
by counsel to EFCC,
Emmanuel Egwuagu,
Goji revealed different
ways through which
funds were siphoned
such as payment of ghost
pensioners, payment of
collective allowances and
payment for non-existent
contracts.
While expatiating on
this claim, Goji told the
court that in the course
of investigation, two
suspicious payment
mandates were sent to
defunct FinBank for them
to credit 16 beneficiaries
with the sum of N45m
and N49m.
Asked what the money
was meant for, Goji told
the court that, “the money
was used by the accused
for payments of ghost
pensioners who were not
genuine beneficiaries of
pension but had several
fictitious bank accounts”.
Justice Kolawole has
adjourned the case to July
6 and 7, 2015 for further
hearing