…Chief Accountant, Others Allegedly Fingered
SAN FRANCISCO, July 18, (THEWILL) – Barely few days after Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State said that the state government was pumping more money to revamp the state-owned Delta Broadcasting Service in Warri and Asaba to meet the Federal Government’s policy to digitalise all electronic media houses by 2015, a N10 million fraud is said to be allegedly rocking the broadcasting station in Warri.
Already, a suspect said to be handling the finances of the broadcasting station is the first casualty of the alleged scam, which sources say could rub on others, depending on the outcome of an investigation panel already checking the record books of the station, THEWILL has learnt.
Dependable source revealed that the state Ministry of Information which is already aware of the alleged fraud had constituted a four-man committee headed by a Director of Information in the ministry, Mr. Paul Osahon, an Assistant Director; Mr Lucky Omokri ; and two others to investigate the alleged ‘missing’ fund put at about N10 million naira.
It was learnt that one Mrs. Augusta Okoro, who is a Chief Accountant at the Broadcasting House has been sent on compulsory leave following allegations that she couldn’t apparently explained the whereabouts of the money which is said to be an Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the station.
THEWILL learnt that the purported explanation by the Chief Accountant that some of the lodged cheques had not matured to reflect in the account of the station didn’t go down well with the Ministry of Information which supervises the broadcasting station, hence the panel of inquiry.
Sources said that the embattled Okoro has been absent from office for sometime now while the General Manager of the station, Mr. Tunde Omonode, has been jostled, answering queries over the incident.
The panel which will begin sitting on Monday, July 27, at the station’s premises, is said to have been mandated to find out how the money got missing or misappropriated, the amount involved, how it was perpetrated and fashion out steps to stem future occurrence.
Meanwhile, the General Manager of the broadcasting station, Omonode, who was reportedly queried by the Ministry of Information over the incident and other management staff of the station allegedly fingered for investigation, had begun lobbying the Ministry through their ‘godfathers’ to save their jobs.
