By Daniel Alabrah
Sunday, Nove
mber 1, 2009
mber 1, 2009The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) might file fresh money laundering charges against the sacked Managing Director of Bank PHB, Mr Francis Atuche, following the discovery of about N15 billion he allegedly transferred abroad illegally.
Sunday Sun authoritatively learnt yesterday that the former bank chief unilaterally used front companies and names of firms with accounts in the bank to procure credit facilities without their knowledge.
Sordid details of the illegal transfer emerged about 72 hours after Atuche’s arraignment before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos. He was docked alongside an Executive Director of the bank, Mr Charles Ojo, on a 26-count charge bordering on fraud and financial malpractices totaling about N80 billion.In one of the deals, the ex-bank chief was said to have illegally obtained N4 billion credit facility for Pegosan Oil and Gas, owned by Mr Peter Ololo, without the knowledge of the company. According to the application for the loan, Pegosan purportedly needed the facility to build a tank farm in Calabar, Cross River State.
The bubble however burst when Mr Ololo, one of highest debtors to several banks in the country, denied obtaining the loan when he was being quizzed by the anti-graft agency.Ololo was also said to have disowned his signature on the loan papers as well as the two signatories.Curiously, the facility was granted on the day the account was opened on December 27, 2007.
The former Bank PHB MD was also said to have illegally advanced N3.9 billion to Extra Oil Nigeria Limited. He reportedly opened a loan file for the company without its knowledge in a name of a front, one Mr Tochukwu Kemakolam as Managing Director. The latter had purportedly signed the document as an Economist.The EFCC later discovered that the real MD of Extra Oil is Mr Diamond Uju and that Mr Kemakolam is a lawyer and a staff of Futureview Financial Services Limited.
Even Futureview Limited was not left out of the illicit deals perpetrated by Atuche as he allegedly obtained a N3.5billion loan facility without the knowledge of the company. The amount was later transferred to an account abroad.Similarly, Atuche, using a firm that had no account with the bank, Tradjek Nigeria Limited, obtained a loan of N3.5 billion. The names of the directors of the company were later found to be fake while the amount was allegedly transferred to an account abroad.
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