The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, has narrated to a Federal High Court in Abuja, it’s findings on how a former Managing Director, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, Haruna Momoh, allegedly siphoned funds belonging to the agency through his wife, Ochuko, using Stanbic IBTC bank.
Presenting it’s first witness, to commence the trial against the couple and others, an Assistant Chief Investigative Officer with the ICPC, Mrs Jane Asuquo, told the court that her team discovered that Ochuko used some companies belonging to her in connivance with her husband to defraud PPMC.
She noted that their investigation revealed that Momoh perpetrated the alleged fraud during his tenure as the agency’s MD between 2012 and 2015.
In the earlier charge, ICPC named Haruna Momoh as the first defendant in the case, but later amended the information due to the fact that Momoh has absconded.
The agency later arraigned his wife, Ochuko, along with Blessing Azuka-Ngozi, Stanbic-IBTC Bank Plc, Energopol Nigeria Limited, Blaid Construction Limited and Blaid Farms Limited on an amended 13 counts charge of fraud.
Led in evidence by ICPC’s prosecuting counsel, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, Asuquo said the commission had in 2015, received a petition against Momoh.
She said that analysis of contract documents obtained from PPMC showed that in 2013, when Momoh was still the MD, he awarded a contract of N250m to Blaid Construction Company, owned by his wife.
“We sought to invite the former PPMC MD but they responded that he could not be traced through his last address,” the witness added.
Asuquo said Azuka-Ngozi, a co-defendant, could not provide ICPC with any document since she said she was no longer working with Energopol Nigeria Limited.
She added, “We wrote letters to the Corporate Affairs Commission on the following companies: Ambassador International and Suit Ltd, Blaid Engineering, Blaid Construction Ltd, etc and they responded.
We wrote to PPMC to invite Haruna Momoh but they wrote to us that they couldn’t get his last address.
We write for the list of contracts awarded and PPMC wrote to us through a letter.”
The witness said her team’s investigation showed that Ochuko and her children had over 50 accounts domiciled in different banks.
She said that there were lots of cash flows in these accounts running into billions in naira and in dollars.
“The investigation also revealed that the accounts were opened between 2012 and 2015 when Momoh was head of PPMC.
“We had course to invite some banks like Stanbic-IBTC because when we went through the bank statements of Stanbic-IBTC, we discovered lots of abnormal inflows; a situation of somebody making a deposit of about N10m one day.
“We drew the attention of the bank to these and invited them if such transactions were normal and if they report this to NFIU and CBN.”
She said the bank had in its response to ICPC’s letter witness admitted that such act was “abnormal.”
The investigator said, it was discovered that Energopol Nigeria Limited, one of the co-defendants, had no office in Port Harcourt as claimed in their documents.
She added that the bank statements of Blaid Construction Limited, another co-defendant, though duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, did not indicate how salaries of staff were paid contrary to the claim that they had over 10 employees working in the company.
The prosecution tendered some documents obtained in the course of investigation as exhibits.
Justice Taiwo Taiwo adjourned till October 28 for continuation of trial.
