Ministry fires whistle-blower who exposed $229,000 fraud

Just as the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay, Thursday took a swipe at two agencies of the administration for still engaging in untidy deals, President Mohammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight has taken more knocks, it was revealed yesterday.

While the Federal Government has adopted and placed incentives for whistle blowing as a means of fighting corruption in the country, top government officials have slapped the government policy by terminating the career of an assistant director, who raised the alarm that the sum of $229,000 and N800,000 had been diverted by key officials in the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, an agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The whistle blower, Mr. Ntia Thompson, an assistant director with the Directorate for Technical Cooperation in Africa, who blew the lid in the fraud that embarrassed the key masterminds, was initially suspended from work on December 19, 2016 and was finally dismissed from service on February 7, 2017.

According to a public notice, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, KHADIJA BUKAR ABBA IBRAHIM, who supervises the DTCA, approved the compulsory retirement of Ntia from work with immediate effect. Although it was not clear as at last night if the letter had been served on the sacked director, a copy of the notice of his dismissal had been posted on the DTCA public notice board.
Vanguard, March 4, 2017

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