Imported User:
The Niger State Commissioner of Finance has disclosed that a full scale investigation into a N 42 million fraud allegedly perpetrated by the staff of the State Board of Internal Revenue in connivance with a second generation bank was ongoing.
The state commissioner of finance said in an interview with journalists in Minna yesterday, that already, three staff of the board had since been suspended to allow room for investigation.
He said Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu has constituted a committee led by the state Head of Service Ahmed Matane to investigate the alleged fraud and anybody found wanting would face the wrath of the law.
Bawa explained that the fraud succeeded because his signature, as the state commissioner of finance and that of the Accountant General of the state were forged with the help of some bank staff to open a fake account through which the fraud was perpetrated.
He recalled that few years ago a similar crime took place in the board of internal revenue where eight persons from the board and a bank manger that connived with them to defraud the state the sum of N 58 million lost their job.
According to him, the state government to ensure that it did not lose a penny owing to the fraud, it wrote to the headquarters of the bank with all necessary documents to support the allegation and which compelled the bank to repay the money to the state and apologised.
Bawa said the same strategy would be adopted this time so that the state government could get a refund of its money and the state would stop transacting business with the bank.
