BUSINESS FMBN N2.2bn office renovation: Med-View Airline Auditors allege victimisation shares go public tomorrow
Some auditors of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria are said to be suffering the consequence for uncovering alleged irregularities in the N2.2 billion renovation works on the Mamman Kontagora Building of the bank in Marina, Lagos.
The repercussion, said to include the dissolution of the Internal Audit Group and transfer of members to remote offices has, however, been denied by the FMBN management.
A protest letter obtained by Daily Trust, addressed to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, by one of the auditors signed by Mr M.A Ibrahim, entitled ‘Intimidation and Unwarranted Harassment by the FMBN Executive Management Committee in the Course of Doing my Job as Auditor’, dated January 9, stated that “The report said anyone in the internal audit group suspected of upholding the path of integrity, professionalism and due process was thrown outside head office to serve as punitive measure and also deter others from upholding same principles.”
It said the transfers saw the head of the Audit Department, Anibaba Taslim, moved to the executive office; Murtala Aliyu Ibrahim to Taraba State; Ale Ahmed to Kaduna; Shaba Etsu to Kwara; Benaebi Okubokeme to Ebonyi; Siaka Omagbogu to Adamawa; and Nasir Muhammad to Katsina.
However, in a reply to Daily Trust’s enquiry over the petition, FMBN management in a statement signed by Zubaida Umar said the transfers affected about 281 staff of the bank and was done following the approval of the minister of Power, Works and Housing to implement a new organisational structure for the bank.
It is “Not only Internal Audit Group, besides, job rotation is an existing policy of the bank and staff transfers and redeployment are at the management’s discretion,” Zubaida said in the statement.
According to the petition, the Ag MD/CE of the bank, Mr Richard Esin, “Put intense pressure on us to release the payment of the sum of N180 million monthly as proposed by the consultant supervising the project but we resisted that move and demanded to see the job completion certificate for the milestone achieved. There was no job completion certificate, but a monthly payment of the sum was proposed.”
The protesting auditor cited what he said was another reason for victimisation as when the audit team uncovered the loss of N423 million from the halfyear income validation report which was initially recorded as profit by the finance and account group.
He also said that the contracts for the internal rehabilitation work awarded to M/S Paul B. Nigeria Ltd which amounted to N714 million; external builders work contracted to M/S MD Construction amounting to N739m; supply and installation of five Lifts to M/S Segeto Ltd at N425m; and air-conditioning, condensate and ventilation to M/S Yobe at N346m which were done by the board of the bank in 2013, were beyond their thresholds and should have gone to the Ministerial Tenders Board, adding that they not comply with due process.
He said about 54.5 percent of the total amount was already disbursed at the rate of N1.5 billion, while the average completion of the six lots was in the range of 15-20 percent at the time of the report.
But the FMBN said in its reaction that due process was observed in engaging contractors for the projects, such as advertisement of the contracts; analysis of both technical and financial bids, all of which followed the procedures by the Bureau of Public Procurement which already had a desk officer in the bank to monitor all the transactions. FLIGHT
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