The Kogi State Staff Screening Appeal Committee has ordered the arrest of a staff of the State Pension Board, Mr. Atabor John Momoh.

A statement by the Director General, Media and Publicity, Evangelist Kingsley Fanwo, in Lokoja said the Committee in the cause of reviewing the bank statement of Mr. Atabor John Momoh discovered that he diverted funds meant for payment of pensioners allowance into his personal account.

According to Evangelist Fanwo, Momoh who, was identified to have huge cash inflow in his account in the last screening exercise, is in charge of reconciliation of failed payment in the State Pension Board and was found to have substituted pensioners’ account with his salary account number.

Evangelist Fanwo added that besides the legitimate salary of Momoh, he was fraudulently paid over N247,000 in each of the months of March and April 2014 while over N325,000 was paid into his account for each of the month of May 2014 and March 2016.

He said from the review of his bank statement, the accused defrauded numerous pensioners of their allowances to the tune of N4.3 million in 2015 alone, and expressed surprise that the net monthly salary credited into his account within the period was N5,657 only.

He noted that its suspicion was premised on the flow of funds into Momoh’s account from the Pension Board between January 2014 and March 215.

However, in his reaction, Momoh said the reason for his low net monthly salary was as a result of the repayment of loan he took from Albarka Multipurpose Cooperative Society and affirmed that it was because of the financial stress arising from his meagre salary that forced him to manipulate the system to his advantage.

He further explained that the method adopted to corner the various sums of money credited to his account was through the preparation of manual schedules for failed bank transactions.

Momoh further confessed that the manual payment schedules were usually approved by the Director of Account, Hajia Amina Haruna.

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