The missing N2.1bn scandal from the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) has claimed its first casualties with the Managing Director Ehi Okomoyon, and two other management staff yesterday tendering their resignations to the board of directors of the company.
The resignation was accepted unanimously by the board after a meeting that lasted for close to three hours and was chaired by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido.
Late last year,a CBN audit team had uncovered a scandal in which N2.1 billion worth N1,000 notes were missing from the minting company, while the quantities of other missing denominations were still being investigated.
Okomoyon had since December 2012 been on suspension when the scandal first broke with Ahmed Bamali appointed acting managing director.
The executive director of operations at the Lagos factory, Desmond Isibor, and the head of security at the same factory, Clement Evarue.
A source said that the mint board had also suspended all operations at the Lagos factory until permanent and more secure structural changes can be put in place and that a technical committee had been set up to review the operations at the factory.
“In view of the recent lapses, the committee is to come up with ways to make the operations more efficient and forestall feature breaches in security,” the source said.
Prior the scandal became public knowledge, police in Lagos were reported to have caught a mint employee in possession of close to N1 million of mint notes which had no serial numbers.
The board had initially faulted the suspended MD for failing to disclose to it that such amounts of money had gone missing even though the company had set up an internal investigation following the arrest of the mint employee with the unnumbered bank notes.
It was also gathered that Bamali, the acting Managing Director of the company, has devoted a lot of time to reform operations and security arrangements at both the Lagos and Abuja factories, while improving staff welfare to make them less vulnerable to dishonest activities.