The Civil Service Veryfication Committee has uncovered some syndicates that are into issuing forged appointment letters to unsuspected applicants.
The syndicates were discovered by the chairman of the committee Engr. Mohammed Ibrahim Panti at the ongoing screening exercise in Minna to ascertain the genuine workers on the payroll of the Niger State Goverment.
The screening exercise which commenced over one year ago, was said to have discovered monumental fraudulent activity being perpetrated by some top civil servants in the state.
Already, the committee had fished out a staff of the Niger State Ministry of health and hospital service who issued out a forged appointment letter to his younger brother since 2009 and now on grade level 13 and had sofar received over N 5 million from the payroll of Niger State goverment.
The Chairman of the Screening Committee had already handed the civil servant Mohammed Ndanusa, to the men of the Special Investigation Bureau (SIB), of the Niger State Police Command for descreet investigations.
CAPITAL POST reliably gathered that some times in the month of April, 2009, Mohammed Ndanusa forged appointment letter of grade level 04 staff of the Ministry of health bearing the name of one Abubakar Aliyu who is now on the run, to level 13 which enable Mohammed to fraudulently embezzled the sum of N 5 million in cash.
It was further gathered that his arrest was effected when the same syndicate forged credentials and conspired with his younger brother, Tanimu Ndanusa, to appear for the screening exercise to claim the forged appointment letter.
On his appearance for the screening exercise, the said Tanimu who is a commercial motorcycle operator, (Okada rider), was confronted with some questions, he could neither communicate in English nor write.
At this point, it was discovered that his elder brother Mohammed Ndanusa, forged both the appointment letter and the credential for him without his younger brother knowing.
During further interrogation by the screening committee, he opened up and admmited that he belong to some group of cabals who are into the falsification of some vital documents within some ministry and parastatals in Niger State, to defraud the state government of substantial amount of money running into millions of Naira.
The Chairman of the Screening Committee who is also the State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructural Development, Engr. Mohammed Ibrahim Panti without further delay invited the police for his arrest.
Already, he is currently assisting the operatives of the under cover police of the Niger State Police Command to uncover and also identify his group of syndicates that were into the fraudulent activities of defrauding the state of its funds and subjecting the suffering workers in the service of Niger State civil service to untold penuries.
The Chairman of the screening committee had some times in June raised the alarm that his committee had discovered a total of 11,000 ghost workers on the payroll of the Niger State and a huge amount of N 79 Million Naira was recovered.
The alarm raised by the committee chairman incurred the wrath of the Organised Labour in which the chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), in the Comrade Yakubu Garba challenged the chairman of the committee to publish the names of the identified ghost workers or the Organised Labour will call on its members to boycott the screening exercise and embarked on industrial action within 14 days.
The ongoing screening exercise of workers in the service of Niger State is the fourth since the inception of the Abubakar Sani Bello led administration within the last five years of his administration without bringing any of the culprit to face the full wrath of the law.
The Niger State House of Assembly had in the plenary on Tuesday, requested for the reports of the previous screening exercises been conducted by the administration within the last five years of this administration.
Meanwhile, the police had commenced full scale investigations to uncovered other syndicates that were said to have been in the Ministries and parastatals that defrauding the state in million of Naira.
The police Public Relation Officer (PPRO) in the state Abiodun Wasiu ASP, could not be reached for comment as he was said to be on another official assignment at the Police officer’s Mess in Minna.
However, a senior police officer, who craved anonymity told our reporter that “Yes the suspect is with us here. We have already obtained court order to enable us to investigate him and his other gang that are into the same fraudulent activity with him.
“Infact, we write to the ministry of health to furnish us with some documents that will help us in our investigations.
“Some his gang are on the run while his younger brother was said to have been on admission in the hospital. After our investigations we will then charge him to court for Prosecution.”
