The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, yesterday, detailed how former Secretary to the Federal Government, Senator Ayim Pius Anyim, used firms in which he had interest to award contracts to the tune of N13 billion from the Ecological Fund Account domiciled in his office.
The anti-graft agency, which arrested Anyim, a former Senate President, said its operatives were also questioning the Ebonyi politician on how he collected the sum of N520 million from the Office of the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, on the eve of the 2015 Presidential election, in which his party, lost.
A top source in EFCC, who confirmed Anyim’s arrest said that the ex-government scribe, was also grilled on false asset declaration by the agency. The official disclosed that EFCC operatives arrested Anyim on Thursday afternoon after he failed to honour a 10 am appointment by the agency. The arrest, according to the source, took Anyim by surprise as the EFCC team, armed with a Warrant, immediately executed a search on his property during which they recovered documents relevant to the investigation.
It was learnt that Anyim who was still being questioned as at press time, might spend the weekend with his interrogators over allegation of abuse of office, misappropriation of public funds and money laundering. The source listed companies linked to Anyim and through, which he obtained contracts or allegedly laundered proceeds of the ecological funds contracts, to include: Foundation Years Limited, Precious Integrated, Precious Petroleum, Mak & Mak, Chap Construction, Eldyke Engineering, Pryke Limited, Chipa Nigeria Limited, Prima A11 Limited, Pima International, Chanto Engineering, Ishiagu Microfinance Bank, Mulak Ventures, Vitro Engineering and Tip Top Nigeria.
The official said that during the period when Anyim held sway as the SGF from May 2011 to May 29, 2015 and specifically between May 2012 to May 2015, an inflow of N58,146,983,677.85 got into the SGF Ecological Fund Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria. “From this fund, three of the companies linked to Anyim, Foundation Years, Obis Associate and Eldyke Engineering received contracts worth over N13billion,” the source revealed. “Foundation Years alone received a net payment of N10,308,017,838.85 between 2014 and 2015.
“Curiously, on receiving the fund, Foundation Years and another of Anyim’s company, Br-Kthru made several transfers to 37 entities.
“Some of the organizations and individuals have no nexus at all with ecological issues. Investigators are probing the reasons behind the wild disbursements,” the official revealed.
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