Following the crisis of confidence and war of attrition between Alhaji Aliko Dangote and former DG of the Nigerian Stocks Exchange (NSE), which led to the removal of the latter few months back, an exclusive audit report conducted on the financial improprieties against the management has opened a wrenching Pandora box.
The audit exercise, which was carried out by two leading financial management and audit expert, KPMG and Aluko Oyebode and Co has indicted Okereke, alongside some former high-ranking management members for circumvention of due process in the awards of contracts, inflation of expenditures, fraud, embezzlements, corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, etc.
Gleanings from the voluminous reports purported that Okereke and her accomplices deliberately contravened key rules and regulations governing financial managements and corporate governance, breach of the Criminal Code, the EFCC Act, the Advanced Free Fraud and Other Related Matters Act, and consequently recommended their prosecutions according to the law.
However, the KPMG unambiguously cited manifest corruption and embezzlements of fund by Okereke and her accomplices through reclassification of already over-inflated expenditures and award of contracts to companies owned either by members of management or in which they have shares, thereby swindling the NSE under false pretences.
The KPMG found out that the NSE under Okereke conducted an award ceremony, dubbed the “Long Service Award” in 2008 and in which the sum of N397,974,573.82 was said to have been expended, whereas the sum of N592, 974, 573.82 was actually expended. The differential amount of N195 million was suspiciously reclassified as market development expenses.
Also, according to the reports, the Head of the NSE's Corporate Affairs, Mr. Yinka Idowu was said to have awarded contracts for the event to his company, Candy Floss Limited at inflated costs.
In the same vein, it was also discovered that the NSE management during the period under review spent huge sums of money on “Business Travels Overseas” and also exceeded its approving limits. The reports affirmed that the NSE in 2007 spent N450 million as against an annual budget of N60 million on overseas travels, while in 2008 the reported expenditure for Business Travels Overseas was stated as N615, 736, 301.62 after the expenses had been reclassified into other items on the NSE budget list. But, the fraud thought to have been perfected by the indicted officials in the NSE did not miss the eagle-eyes of the audit team, which unearthed that N1.9 billion was actually spent on the overseas travels in the same year.
The damming reports also cited the Maintenance of Staff Quarters of personnel as another avenue through which the funds of the NSE found its ways into private pockets. The auditors declared that in areas where several millions of naira was budgeted for the so-called maintenance of staff quarters only the private residences of the DG and ADG was attended to. The auditors claimed that some invoices and ledger entries showed that furniture items, bathroom accessories, and purchase of a generator, among others were purported to have been purchased, but were not seen for verification.
In addition, it was also discovered that the NSE management under Okereke was wont to allocate monies and incur expences in excess of their annual budgets in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
The KPMG found Okereke and other leading members of the NSE board at the time of official malfeasances, outright corruption and fraud, and as a result recommended their prosecution.
The full unaudited report is on pages 36-41.