Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON, Jalal Arabi and the Commission’s Secretary, Abdullahi Kontagora are currently in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC over an alleged mismanagement of N90 billion from 2024 Hajj subsidy.
In a document sighted by AIT.live, the anti-graft agency says, a total of SR314,098 (Saudi Riyal) was recovered from the NAHCON Chairman and other ranking officials.
The EFCC says its investigation revealed that from the N90 billion Hajj subsidy, Arabi, fraudulently overpaid himself and others the necessary operational cost. This was against the approved amounts for the Chairman/CEO, Commissioners, Secretary and Directors/Chief of Staff in the 2024 budget put at $4,250, $12,750, $3,825 and $15,300, respectively.
The EFCC, however, alleged that “The Chairman fraudulently overpaid himself, the Commissioners, Secretary and Directors for the 2024 Hajj operational cost as the Chairman was entitled to SR15,929 but he got SR50,000; three commissioners who were meant to get SR15,929 each received SR40,000 each. The Secretary got SR 30,000 instead of SR14,336. Directors and the Chief of Staff received SR30,000 instead of the SR2,550 they were entitled to. The total of SR314,098 were recovered from all of them.”
The anti-graft agency had first grilled Arabi for hours on July 29 and released him on bail. Also, some top officials of the Commission were arrested by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC over alleged mismanagement or diversion of the N90 billion subsidy last Wednesday.
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Sources in the EFCC say the NAHCON Chairman was taken in again on Wednesday for questioning and has been detained.
A document sighted by AIT.live revealed that SR8,614,175.27 cash withdrawal out of the N90 billion released by the Federal Government to the Commission is yet to be accounted for by NAHCON and an investigation into the Commission’s activities since 2022 resulted in the recovery of estacodes paid to staff who did not undertake study tours and payments made to Shuraka’a al-Khair Group Limited for services that were not rendered.
Documents for payment of the consultancy services, including the Executive Chairman’s approval, were fraudulently backdated to January 23, 2024 to enable the payment of the sum of SR780,019,59 to Shuraka’a al-Khair Group Limited on April 14, 2024.
The Commission’s Secretary slotted the approval for the payment of the 7.5% consultancy to Shuraka’a al-Khair Group Limited in the minutes of an Expanded Transitional Executive Council meeting as item 10 under AOB to enable the perfection of the documentation to steal the funds.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
