A prosecution witness, Mary Anthony Bawa, has told a Jos High court, presided over by Justice Daniel Longji, that former Governor of Plateau State, Jonah David Jang had approved N2.079billion for the Plateau State Universal Education Board (SUBEB) without following due process.
The former governor is facing a 12-count charges for abuse of office, embezzlement and money laundering to the tune of N10billion, brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Bawa said: “It was discovered that about N3billion was withdrawn from Plateau State SUBEB account and the first defendant (Jang) had directed that it should be borrowed from the Plateau State SUBEB account.
“We discovered that these monies were borrowed in tranches. The first tranche was N2.079billion, which the first defendant directed to be paid to other contractors and liabilities in the state.”
Bawa added that another N700million was used as classified expenditure while another N400million was also borrowed and used for classified expenditures.
The prosecution had, on Monday, amended the charges to 17.
However, Bawa, prosecution witness 12, a former Director of Finance and Supply in SUBEB, told the court that the threshold limit for the sum of N2.079billion was never presented to the board, adding that a loan of N2.079billion was handed over to her.
She said: “On my resumption, my colleagues handed over the loan of N2.079billion, borrowed by the previous government to me. I processed another request to borrow N750million by following a letter and directives from the chairman.
The former Director, who is now serving as a civil servant in the Office of the Accountant General, Plateau State Ministry of Finance, further explained that the official activities, including renovation of schools, furnishing and buildings of primary and secondary schools in Plateau State were suspended due to the negative impacts of the borrowing.
“SUBEB could not carry out the purpose of the funds as the said funds were diverted to classified expenditure, where the second defendant withdrew cash and delivered to Jang,” the witness said.
While being led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, (SAN), PW12 said, “looking at Exhibit P45, another sum of N1billion was processed via the loan procedure but only N400million was released due to the fact that there was not sufficient money to pay for the teachers’ salaries, which took us over four months from August 2014 to December 2014 due to the unavailability of funds.
“Before I left SUBEB in August 2015, the non-payment of loans, ranging from N2.079billion, N750million to N400million, etc, affected the day-to-day operations of the educational sector negatively by slowing down the pace of work,” she stated.
