Employees Plead Guilty To Diverting Salaries Of Ex-government Workers

Two employees of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) connected Wednesday pleaded blameworthy to a two-count complaint of corruption and diverting salaries of immoderate erstwhile unit members of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) successful Ebute Meta, Lagos.

The 2 civilian servants, a Chief Accountant, Shola Onasanya and a Principal Executive Officer successful the accounts department, Halimat Olalere, were arraigned earlier the Federal High Court successful Lagos by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).

The defendants, who enactment astatine the FMC’s IPPIS Payroll Desk Office, pleaded blameworthy aft entering into a plea bargain statement with the ICPC.

The Commission had claimed that the defendants unlawfully converted N1.17 cardinal for idiosyncratic usage by failing to halt the salaries of employees who had exited the service.

The ICPC had maintained that the offence contravenes Section 18(2)(d) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2022.

When the lawsuit was called connected Wednesday, the prosecutor, Enosa Omoghibo, informed the proceedings judge, Justice Ibrahim Kala, astir the plea bargain agreement, stating that an amended complaint had been filed connected September 4, and requested that this caller complaint beryllium work to the defendants.

However, the justice reminded the authoritative that helium ought to person sought his support earlier presenting the amended charge.

Following the judge’s position, Omoghibo applied for the court’s support to substitute the archetypal complaint with the amended one, which was met with nary objections from the defence counsel.

The defendants past pleaded blameworthy to the charges.

Based connected the development, the authoritative applied, referencing conception 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, for the plea bargain statement to beryllium accepted arsenic the judgement successful the case.

Again, Justice Kala pointed retired that, according to conception 274 of the ACJA, the tribunal could not proceed to convict the defendants without tendered evidence.

He noted that portion the blameworthy pleas were significant, they unsocial could not warrant a condemnation without supporting grounds from the prosecution.

As a result, the counsel requested an adjournment to hole due documentation, and the tribunal agreed to adjourn the lawsuit to September 18 for a reappraisal of the facts.

The defendants allegedly committed the offence betwixt January and December 2023 astatine the FMC successful Ebute Meta, Lagos.

The prosecution claimed that the defendants had altered the relationship details of Olalere, the 2nd defendant, to proceed receiving salaries meant for erstwhile staff.

The archetypal defendant, Onasanya, reportedly instructed Olalere to transportation the erstwhile employees’ salaries into his account.

The 2nd suspect is accused of assisting the archetypal suspect successful converting the full sum of N1.17 million, which constitutes proceeds of corruption.