Officials of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) have Allegedly diverted the February and March salaries of over 60 civil servants, including nurses, other medical personnel in hospitals and those in education sector in the service of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to suspected syndicating scammers.
Our investigation, which was first published on this platform a couple of weeks ago, show that operatives of the IPPIS diverted the workers salaries to a group of suspected scammers, in the name of loans taken by the concerned workers from one man called David Chukwuma, using no fewer than 15 mushroom Micro Financial Institutions as accomplices.
It was gathered that the IPPIS, which was not party to the terms of the loan from David Chukwuma and his syndicating scammers, came from no where to empty the salaries of the workers, who were beneficiaries of the loans, to the syndicating group and individuals.
It was gathered that the syndicate is made up about 15 mushroom
Banks, including Loan Book, Credit Direct, Essential Finance MF, Accello Micro Fnances, Letshego MF, Zedvance MFB, Teago Global, Liquid Crest, Link MFB, Penny Lender MFB and a company called Hi-Breed Consultant Services Limited.
The syndicating scammers were said to have given out various forms of loans to the workers based on private arrangements that had nothing to do with the IPPIS.
It was learnt that the IPPIS, without consulting with the workers, who are the loan beneficiaries, decided to be giving the salaries of the concerned workers to the syndicate, for the syndicating scammers to be paying the workers after deducting the agreed amount to service the loans.
However, luck ran out of the IPPIS and the syndicate when workers could not access their entire February and March salaries, in breech of agreement to deduct the amount for servicing the loan and paying them the balance.
It was gathered that the concerned workers were at the Hi-Breed Consultant Services Limited to know what went wrong, but were told that David Chukwuma, who has been the principal actor in the scam was not part of them in Hi-Breed Consultant.
It was learnt that efforts by the frightened civil servants to get David Chukwuma on his mobile phone failed because he switched off the line.
A lawyer, who claimed to be representing Hi-Breed Consultant, Barrister Monday Ehimare Jeffrey, had begged the aggrieved civil servants to give him time to fish out David Chukwuma with a view to resolve the matter.
However, as at today, April 15, the affected civil servants have not heard from Barrister Ehimare Jeffrey.
They are wondering why the the IPPIS would be handing over their entire salaries to a third-party like the syndicate, without any written agreement from them.
Meanwhile, the civil servants are considering many options to stop IPPIS from handing over their entire monthly salaries to the third party, including hiring a lawyer to take us the case on their behalf.
There are lots of fraudulent practices going on with the salaries of civil servants in FCT. I think the IPPIS should always demand for a written document from these workers before tampering with their salaries, the fraud is too much.