At the continuation of Senate President Bukola Saraki's trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal today April 6th, Michael Wetkas, a detective of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) who started testifying against Saraki yesterday, told the court today of how he, Saraki, was still collecting monthly salaries from the coffers of the state governor four years after leaving office.
The Cable reports that bank statements from Access bank showed that he collected the
money from the state
"In the course of our investigation, we wrote to Access Bank for them to give us details of the salary account of the defendant. The salary that was coming into the account was N254, 212 as of 1 August 2007.
“As of June 3, 2011, the salary was N291, 124. On July 4, there was another payment with the narration Kwara State Government (KSG) June 2011 salary. The amount was N572, 286. On August 29, 2011, there was another payment in the sum of N744, 002 from the Kwara state government. On September 29, 2011 there was another payment of N743, 942 with the narration salary payment from KSG. On October 27, 2011, there was another payment of N1, 165, 468 for salary. In November 2011, there was payment of the same amount. The narration was December pension. On February 1, 2012, there was payment of the same amount with the narration for pension. The salary payments stopped in this account on August 31, 2015. The defendant left office on May 29, 2011, he became senator in the same.”.The witness also alleged that Saraki made cash deposits of $10,000 18 times in one day.
“On March 23, 2005, there was a cash deposit of N8.2m into the defendant account at the GRA Ilorin branch. On March 29, 2005, there was a N200m bank draft made in favour of an implementation committee on sale of government property. On October 16, 2006, the defendant obtained a loan of N380m from GTB. On that same day, there was a bank draft in favour of the same implementation committee. The draft was N286.3m. On the same day, there was another draft of N12.8m in favour of the committee on the landed properties. The loans were meant for purchase of properties by the defendant.
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On that same day there was a loan disbursement of N380m. On February 7, 2007, there was a transfer of N3m by Abdul Adama (Saraki’s personal assistant). On April 3, 2007, there was an electronic transfer of N130. 6m on the instruction of Saraki from the implementation committee to his account. On that same day, there were cash lodgments five times a day. The sums were N11m, N20m, N20m, N20m, and N6m. The total amount on that day was N77m. Before these lodgments, there was a debit balance of N81, 960, 289. On November 22, 2007, there were cash lodgments into the account (Saraki’s naira account) by Abdul Adama, in 50 different transactions. Before those lodgments, the account was in a debit balance of N80, 210, 976. On November 29, there were cash lodgments by Ubi. Over 20 transactions in bits of N20m.
On March 20, 2008, there were more cash lodgments. Before then the account had a debit balance of N96m. On September 23, 2008, there were different cash lodgments by different individuals. On April 30, 2009, there was a bank draft of in favour of PGL Asset Management Limited in the sum of N400m. On October 26, 2009, cash lodgments were made by different individuals to Zenith bank account of the defendant 87 times in a single day. On May 19, 2009, he made a cash lodgment of $10, 000 18 times in one day in his dollar account. On 23 August, 2009, $99, 975 was transferred into his account.”