Group Alleges N104m Fraud In NITEL

By Everest Amaefule

The former management of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, deducted over N104m from workers’ salaries and sought to transfer the liability to the Bureau of Public Enterprises, a workers’ group has alleged.

NITEL Tower

NITEL Staff Cooperative Society made this allegation in a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission dated March 16, 2007.

The petition, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent on Sunday, also alleged that BPE had failed to remit monies deducted from the pensions of NITEL workers who were indebted to the society.
According to the cooperative, the management of NITEL failed to follow the usual practice of deducting and remitting workers’ contributions to the cooperative society even though it deducted the monies from the workers’ salaries between February and July 2006.

They alleged that the former management sought to transfer the liability for the payment of the money to the BPE as part of staff salaries when it became apparent that the privatisation agency would take over the liability of settling unpaid salaries of the workers.

However, according to the cooperative society, BPE dissociated itself from the liability thereby leaving the society stranded and with no option but to appeal for the intervention of EFCC.
They also alleged that the BPE itself had deducted about N102m from the pensions of former NITEL workers that were servicing some loans before their appointments were terminated according to the requests made to the agency, but failed to remit these deductions.

Part of the petition reads, “The payoff exercise is over but BPE is yet to remit the society’s monies and we are of the opinion that if the monies were not deducted from the staff-members payoff, it would have been handed over to them at the payoff point.
“We are still wondering why the BPE is finding it difficult to remit our society’s monies. We see the action of the erstwhile NITEL/MTel management and the BPE as sabotage.
“They are aiding the failure of a cooperative society that is programmed to provide job opportunities and succour to its members who were recently exited from NITEL.
“Our wide range of agricultural programmes such as poultry farm, fish pond, cassava processing factory, juice factory which should have been executed on our 48-hectares of farmland at Kuje Area Council except for the dearth of funds occasioned by the continuous withholding of the society’s monies.”

The BPE spokesman, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, told our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday that it was customary for rightful deductions to be made before any person was paid pension and gratuity.
He, however, denied that BPE was withholding any money belonging to the cooperative society. He said the payoff made to NITEL workers was handled by a team that included the EFCC and led by officers from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

Anichebe said BPE neither handled the money nor the payment. Therefore, he added, BPE could not be withholding any deductions made from the workers’ payoff.
Our correspondent recalled that EFCC invited former top management of NITEL to show up last Tuesday to answer allegations on the monies which could not be remitted to the cooperative society when they were in charge of affairs at the First National Telecoms Carrier.

Source: punch

Back to Top
Post Your Feedback