It has emerged that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board is currently investigating new cases of fraud totalling N83m uncovered in its state offices in Kano, Edo, Kogi, Gombe and Plateau.
The board is reportedly investigating N31 million stolen in Edo and N20m in Kano. It has also grilled officials in Plateau and Gombe over N15m and N10m allegedly mismanaged.
It was also understood that JAMB was investigating the misappropriation of N7m in its office in Kogi State.
The board’s Head of Information, Fabian Benjamin, confirmed the figures on Friday and said the exams body would be diligent in its investigations and would not tolerate corrupt practices from any of its officials.
He said, “We will monitor with careful scrutiny how workers handled public funds. We are trying to block all leakages and loopholes.
“What happened was that we had a panel session in Abuja and most of the state coordinators could not account for how some monies were spent or remitted. The coordinator of Kano State could not account for N20m, while the Edo (office) could not account for N31m. In Plateau State, we are looking at N15m.
“For Kogi State, we have about N7m that is a source of contention while Gombe office has N10m that is also a source of contention. You can then sum it up and know how much corruption ate deep into some officials.
“The registrar is frank and thorough about the investigations and he has warned to transfer some of the cases to the police and to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.”
A source at JAMB said all the tainted workers found to have been involved in corrupt activities being investigated had been suspended pending the outcome of investigations.
Recall that a clerk at the JAMB office in Makurdi, Benue State, Philomena Chieshe, had recently claimed that a mystery snake swallowed the board’s N36million kept under her watch.
This apart, in Nasarawa State, Labaran Tanko, was reported on Wednesday to be undergoing investigation over alleged fraud N26m fraud.
Tanko had claimed that the N26m, which was the worth of unsold Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination scratch cards, got burnt in his car during an accident while he was on his way to remit the cards at the JAMB office in Abuja.
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