A former Head of Service of the Federation (HoS), Steven Oronsaye, yesterday before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, faulted the mode adopted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the investigation of the alleged malpractices brought against him in relation to federal pensions.
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Oronsaye, who was cross-examined by EFCC counsel, Oluwaleke Atolagbe, claimed that EFCC came to some wrong conclusions in the ways and manners the allegations against him were investi-gated. Specifically, the former HoS explained that EFCC chose to pick only payment vouchers rather than whole files in the contract award; hence the anti-graft agency could not arrive at just conclusions.
He claimed that the award of contracts and running of government was a process involving files moving from one place to another adding that EFCC ought to have worked on entire files rather than picking only payment vouchers to conduct investigation on. He insisted before Justice Inyang Ekwo that as Head of Service, he was not a signatory to the pension account of the federal Government.
Oronsaye told the court that his signature appeared in some payment vouchers as endorser and not as an authorizing signatory as erroneously concluded by the EFCC.
On his endorser signature, Oronsaye maintained that as Head of Service, he had oversight functions on everything in the office as long as such oversight function was not for personal benefits.
Answering a question on the threshold of money that could be withdrawn by the Permanent Secretary in the office of the Head of Service, Oronsaye clarified that the Federal Government policy put a routine expenditure for a Permanent Secretary at N5 million but explained that such threshold was different from payments for government contracts. Meanwhile, further hearing in the fraud charge against Oronsaye has been fixed for today by Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo.
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