The officials were picked following a petition by a Commissioner in the State Civil Service Commission, Mr Guy Okite. Okite, had alleged in the petition that Mrs Charity Ukonu, a staff of the payroll department of the state Ministry of Finance, was for three years paying him 30 per cent of his legitimate salary. He further stated that he was constrained to involve the anti-graft agency because all administrative procedure taken to make her pay him yielded no positive result. Part of the petition reads: “In trying to carry out this legitimate duty charged on me by the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and upon receiving several complaints from various civil servants against one Mrs. Charity Ukonu of the Audit Department of the Abia State Civil Service who uses her office as a member of a purported State Salary Enhancement and Audit Committee to defraud, embezzle and to steal monies from the State/Public funds designated for salaries. This, she does by making spurious inclusions to salaries of her proxies and cronies who make returns of the surplus of the salaries to her.” According to him, Mrs Ukonu’s pays herself and receives double and/or multiple salaries from Abia State Government in various ministries and departments. Okite’s petition provided evidence of multiple salaries for herself and cronies with bank details, the ministries and departments, amount and month involved. “On the same 09/06/2016 Mrs. Charity Ukonu as a civil servant received a huge and questionable sum of N 2,050,000.00 (Two million and fifty thousand naira) from some person who I guess is her ally in the government as her share of their loot and another sum of N 5,000,000.00(five million naira) both huge sums in her Sterling Bank Account No. 0020634826. “It may please you and also interest you to know that the said Charity Ukonu is but a mere civil servant on Salary Grade Level (SGL) 14 whose monthly take-home pay is about N 80,000.00. I attach herewith a copy of query as Exhibit A from the office of The Auditor General of the State on why Charity and cohorts are making such unauthorized inclusions and padding of certain persons salaries to the tune that becomes more than 100% the due salary. A careful perusal on the said Exhibit A Nos 25 reveals that Charity payrolls herself and receives N 180,089.00 as gross while the gross due is N 80,089.00.” Briefing journalists on the development the State Commissioner for Information, Mr John Okiyi Kalu, and his Finance counterpart, Mr Obinna Oriaku, said the government position on such issues had always been transparency and that the government would not shield any official found culpable. That, they said, was the reason the government would cooperate with EFCC to unearth the details of the allegation]]>

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