The trial of former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro and others over the botched 2014 Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) resumed in Abuja on Wednesday with two witnesses giving details of how the N675,675,000 realised from the exercise was shared.
Moro, a former Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel-Nwobia, a Deputy Director in the ministry, Femi Alayebami and Drexel Technologies Nigeria Limited, a firm engaged by the ministry for the exercise, are standing trial on an 11-count charge.
They were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for defrauding 675,675 Nigerian job seekers of N675,675,000.
The money was the total sum of the application fee collected from job seekers.
The ministry charged N1,000 on each job seeker for the exercise.
The fifth and sixth prosecution witnesses, Augustine Ugorji and Mrs. Bilikisu Mohammed, who were led in evidence by the lead prosecution lawyer, Aliyu Yusuf, also explained the companies’ roles in the exercise.
Ugorji, who was the first to take the witness stand, said his company, Payforme Services Nigeria Limited (PSNL), an e-commerce licenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was engaged by Drexel to provide online platform for collection of application fee.
The witness, who said he worked for Payforme from 2010 to 2016, and at a point, its Head of Finance, said Drexel had a contract with Ministry of Interior for job recruitment, but engaged his company to provide payment site or payment platform for receipt of payment from applicants.
Ugorji said: “The agreement between Drexel and Ministry of Interior was for each applicant to pay N1,000 and Drexel agreed to pay Payforme N150 from the N1,000. From the N150, Payforme paid N80 and N70 to the banks.
“The balance of N850 went to Drexel. The Nigeria InterBank Settlement System (NIBSS) where banks do their clearing, was paid by Payforme in line with an agreement. We had 675,675 people who made payment through our platform.”
The post How funds realised from botched NIS recruitment were shared – Witness appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
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