The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is investigating the Director General and 24 other officials of a Federal Government parastatal under the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The DG and members of staff have been questioned over the withdrawal of $219,000 (about N66 million) from the account of the Nigerian Technical Cooperation Fund, NTCF.
The money is jointly managed by African Development Bank and the NTCF and domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
It was meant to provide some development projects for some African countries in the 2013 fiscal year.
It was learnt that the head of the parastatal, who is from Borno State, connived with 24 other Nigerian officials in the parastatal and illegally siphoned the amount for personal use, thereby triggering petitions to the EFCC from aggrieved staff of the agency.
The EFCC immediately dispatched operatives, who posed as auditors and spent days to scrutinise the accounts of the agency.
“It was clear to us that the money in question had been withdrawn by the officials but what we want to know is on what the money was used for.
“Having established a prima facie case of illegal withdrawal, we invited the DG and the 24 staff and they were interrogated between last Tuesday and Thursday and all of them made useful statements to the commission.
“They were all admitted to administrative bail, having accepted to refund the money to the last kobo and we have asked them to report back on Thursday,” an EFCC source confirmed.
