The whistle blower, Mr. Ntia Thompson, an assistant director with the Directorate for Technical Cooperation in Africa, who blew the lid in the fraud that embarrassed the key masterminds, was initially suspended from work on December 19, 2016 and was finally dismissed from service on February 7, 2017.
According to a public notice, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, KHADIJA BUKAR ABBA IBRAHIM, who supervises the DTCA, approved the compulsory retirement of Ntia from work with immediate effect.
The sack letter was signed by Sanda S. Isah, Head of Administration Department in DTCA.
It was not clear whether the sack of the staff would be approved by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, which has not been informed of the ugly development.
It will he recalled that Ntia, as assistant director in charge of Servicom Unit at the DTCA had written a petition to the EFCC last December drawing attention to the surreptitious withdrawal of the sum of $229,000 and another N800,000 from the agency’s account purportedly for the purpose of celebrating the the tenth anniversary of the Nigerian Technical Cooperation Fund (NTCF) which was allocated $36,852.00, and monitoring of various projects executed from the Trust Fund across Africa.
However, when Ntia got wind of the diversion of the fund, he immediately reported the ugly development to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission asking it to investigate the fraud.
Findings showed that although the EFCC waded into the matter and compelled the affected officials to refund the sum of N800,000, no further action was taken against the officials to refund the $229,000 which they had already taken.
Source :Vanguard
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Politics