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JANUARY 29, 2007 VOL. 20. NO 16

NAMASA’s N800 Million Fraud

**Mfon Usoro, DG NAMASA.**

Work at the National Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NAMASA), comes to a stand-still as the Federal Government sacks its Director for Financial Services, Mrs C.C. Ezeala, over an N800 million scandal
By Innocent Chukwu
The name, Mrs. C.C. Ezeala, to many staffers of the National Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NAMASA), stands out especially as it is synonymous with the agency’s financial dealings. The Ezeala personage, before her recent exit from the agency, has therefore remained impregnable, in-assailable and in fact, larger-than-life.
On two occasions when The Source encountered her at her expansive office at the agency’s headquarters in Apapa Lagos, whilst investigating an alleged financial scam which the agency’s Public Relations Department could not adequately comment on, Ezeala’s responses had depicted her as one who was unwilling to engage in interactions capable of revealing her inner self and antecedents.
At one of such encounters, despite feigned gentle mannerism, she couldn’t completely conceal her real self as she retorted: “Please, I am a civil servant. I don’t have anything to tell you in this matter. Go to ninth floor (Public Affairs Department), or leave me alone.”
Instructively, Ezeala’s often dismissive disposition, many argue, is not unconnected with her role as NAMASA’s Director for Financial Services – a position which made her an indispensable signatory to diverse bank accounts of the former National Maritime Authority (NMA), which metamorphosed into NAMASA. Such an enviable position, it has been further argued, also made it possible for her to be involved in virtually all the financial dealings of either the NMA or NAMASA, thus observers say she needed to guard her position jealously.
But in a curious twist, her office has been fingered in several financial improprieties that is currently rocking both NAMASA and the defunct NMA. The Source gathered that because of her guts in financial matters, Ezeala had remained a veritable tool in the hands of previous Directors General (DG’s) of the agency, right from the tenure of Ferdinand Agu to Festus Ugwu and the current DG, Mfon Usoro, especially when it comes to handling what industry sources refer to as “bad jobs.”
Investigations, for instance, indicate that in 2005 when Dr. Ilyasu Dhacko, the then Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the NMA was involved in an alleged N70 million misappropriation saga, Ezeala’s office was said to have been implicated. In fact, her alleged (in)competence and (in)efficiency was to open doors for her... into the warm embrace of the first and current DG/CEO of NAMASA, Usoro, who inexplicably preferred to use her in place of her (Ezeala) direct boss, Dr. Adegboyega Dosumu.
Towards the end of 2006, for example, certain documents containing alleged fraudulent financial dealings at NAMASA but suspected as having emanated from the office of the agency’s chairman, Alhaji Tijani Ramalan – who had scores to settle with Usoro – were released to journalists in order to expose some alleged financial games being played by Usoro and Ezeala.
Some of the documents, inside sources disclosed, include photocopy of a cheque in which a ‘princely’ sum of five million naira was allegedly released to Usoro to host business editors of national media organisations in order to quell incessant negative reports about NAMASA.
Competent sources reveal that the said amount was not, however, used for the purpose for which it was indented.
Notably, the alleged mismanagement of NMA – and by extension NAMASA’s funds – especially from the office of Director of Finance Services (DFS), inside sources hinted, might have continued without being noticed, but for the death, last year, of a PDP governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Funsho Williams, an engineer and former chairman of the NMA.
The Source reliably gathered that in the course of investigating the killing of Williams, the financial books of NAMASA (NMA) were opened and findings indicate that among several undisclosed alleged financial rackets, it was discovered that during the time of Agu as DG, NMA, the sum of N800 million being car and housing loan for NMA workers, was convientently forgotten in an undisclosed fixed deposit account.
Dependable sources said that the money was never disbursed to the beneficiaries, but was rather tampered with and Ezeala (DFS) was privy to the whereabouts of the fund. It was further gathered that she claimed the money was deposited in one of the failed banks. Consequently, Ugwu and 18 other management staff of the agency were shown the way out last August over the said amount and other funds of the agency deemed not to have been well-managed.
Notably, Ezeala was not affected by the sack gale that followed. The Source was told that she was retained so as to allow investigations to be concluded in the matter since she was a signatory to NMA’s many accounts.
Competent sources close to the finance department also whispered to The Source that the NMA funds were being traded before getting stuck in four banks which have since gone under. These were Societe Generale Bank (SGBN), Savannah, City Express and Afex Banks.
The sources disclose that two of the banks had fixed deposit accounts in local currency (naira), renewal every 90 days, while the other two had accounts in dollars, which Ezeala was the only permanent signatory, while the sitting DG countersigned. These dollar accounts, NAMASA insiders alleged, were constantly tampered with, little wonder, they insist, Ezeala was the darling of all the DGs she served.
According to investigations, these monies used to rate in huge returns for the organisation running into hundreds of millions of dollars because the authority despite having so much money does not put it into immediate use.
Like the legendary Oliver Twist, however, Ezeala allegedly sought for more deals, using NAMASA’s funds when Usoro was appointed in 2006 as head of the agency, but according to inside sources, she did not realise that she was being investigated by the Transport Ministry. According to details of the investigations, Ezeala’s increased appetite for graft was somehow gratified when Usoro favoured her with funds handling, as against Dr Dosumu, the Executive Director, Finance and Administration of NAMASA, who is also Ezeala’s direct boss.
Giving reasons for her choice, Usoro was quoted to have said recently that she could by-pass anyone to ensure that work at the NAMASA was not hindered. In fact, at a management meeting held at NAMASA office in Lagos where bottled-up emotions and transfer of agression were said to have been exhibited, Usoro was said to have threatened to sack a staff simply identified as Emeka for not treating a file sent to his (Emeka) office since September last year.
Being a signatory to the accounts of the NMA further gave her Ezeala an edge over Dosumu. The DG, through the choice of Ezeala in most financial dealings of NAMASA, inexplicably pitted Dosumu against her (Ezeala) while the latter, subtly played safe by distancing himself from financial dealings in the agency, thus leaving Ezeala to play into the hands of her investigators.
The Source was told that because of Dosumu’s aloofness – an act aimed at implicating Ezeala – heaps of documents on his table (Dosumu) were left unsigned (though he was said to have signed the ones he was quite sure of), passing the suspicious ones over to the ‘more courageous Ezeala. To this end, both Ezeala and Dosumu never had a smooth working relationship.
But early January 2007, the Transport Ministry under the headship of Mallam Mohammed Habib Aliyu, Minister of State (MOS), handed a sack (suspension?) letter to Ezeala who was directed to vacate the office of DFS with immediate effect.
Confirming Ezeala’s sack, or suspension to The Source, the agency’s Deputy Director (Corporate Services), Ego Nwokocha, said that “(the) Director, Finance is not on duty, though we heard that she was suspended, but the letter to show she was suspended has not gotten us. I have not been given a brief (to that effect) because my DG has not been around.”
The Source was told that Ezeala’s suspension may lead to her eventual sack. This feeling, competent sources revealed, has to do with the antecedents of the ministry in sacking wanting staffers of the agency. They cite the example of Dhacko who was fingered in a financial scam in 2005, and was first handed a suspension letter which latter became his albatross.
Although Nwokocha failed to disclose why Ezeala was sacked, and calls to Aliyu’s GSM phone could not go through, The Source’s investigation, however revealed that Ezeala was sactioned in connection with the N800million car and housing loan, as well as other illegal financial dealings and funds misappropriation.
Ministry sources also disclosed that Ezeala has accomplices in the agency, especially in the Internal Audit department, which routinely gave her cover. “These staffers, after investigations have been carried out, may be shown the way out,” the source said.
Indeed, Ezeala’s sack is not without its negative impacts on NAMASA. When The Source visited the agency for enquiries, not a few staffers reiterated that only skeletal work was going on. The reason, The Source gathered, was because since Usoro and Dosumu travelled and Ezeala sacked, there are hardly funds with which to run the agency.
The Source also spoke to some staffers who dared the implication of talking to journalists (Usoro had warned that such staff risk been sacked) who confirmed that Ezeala was a signatory to many of NAMASA accounts, both at home and abroad, so it would be difficult to withdraw money without her unless the signatories were changed. This, they alleged, was why many contracts of the old NMA were awarded and paid for in foreign currencies.
The workers lamented that because of Ezeala’s sack, all financial dealings in NAMASA are currently at a standstill. Housing allowance and salaries which used to come in the first week of January, have been suspended. Similarly; other staffers lament that they used their personal resources to finance official courses for which they had been given approval to attend, in the hope that they would be reimbursed by the agency, but lament that the memos have been trapped in Dosumu’s office unattended to. Just as all written cheques have been suspended, pending when the issue of Ezeala is finally settled.
Though Nwokocha insisted that work still goes on, The Source learnt that Dosumu, who is afraid of signing documents that might nail him, is now off and on in the office. But his (Dosumu) aides told The Source that he is still working, while they also said that Ezeala was just one of the “B” signatories to the agency’s accounts which, therefore, cannot hinder work at the agency.
A top official of NAMASA who craved anonymity, disclosed that when Usoro was appointed, some senior staffers warned her against the “Last Standing Mafia (LSM)” – a nickname with which Ezeala was identified based on her antecedents. He added that the DG might have used her direct dealings with Ezeala as a ploy to expose the latter’s excesses and thus be in a position to effect her inglorious exit.
This source said that though the DG may not have been involved in financial excesses like her predecessors, the rate at which she travels within and outside the country, with a large retinue of aides and officials in her delegation, has remained a source of worry to the agency because such trips often gulp several millions of naira hardly manifested in the accounts or financial records of NAMASA.
Commenting further, it said: “But the best thing that has happened to NAMASA in recent times is that the cabal in the agency has been dealt with, because the last of them (so to say) has been sacked. The workers are somehow relieved because the woman had sat atop the agency’s finances for several years. It is now left for the new DG to wake up and close those leakages that have been there since the time of Agu, so that the workers will do their own and put the agency on the right track.”
But in the heat of NAMASA’s quagmire, many industry operators have indicated that the problem with the agency has to do more with the huge funds at its disposal, which they contend, often makes it possible for its management to tamper with its coffers from time to time. They made reference to the March 2005 petition written to President Olusegun Obasanjo and the National Assembly by a group known as the Maritime Stakeholders Forum (MSF).
The MSF had alleged back then that in the past 15 years, the DGs of the agency had embezzled over one billion dollars (N140billion) which accrued to the ship and shipping regulatory agency. In the said petition, a former DG of the NMA, Agu was indicated as having not accounted for about N240 million insurance policy, which earned him (Agu) a query from then Minister of Transport, Dr. Precious Sekibo and another N70million scam at the authority’s Public Relations Department, then headed by Dhacko.
The petitioners also decried the availability of a huge foreign exchange – dominated budget available at the spending disposal of the agency’s helmsmen, without stringent conditions for accountability in the use of such funds. For this reason, analysts argue, people like Ezeala has had the courage to allegedly manipulate the finances of the agency with impunity, while enjoying the shield of the internal auditors and directors generals.
Lending credence to the submission of the maritime stakeholders, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), recently called on the National Assembly to expunge from the NAMASA bill section 17(b) which empowers the agency to collect from terminal operators 2.5 per cent levy on cargo and shore dues.
The BPE computed that such dues could amount to over $900million (USD) per annum, while the terminal operators would in turn hike port charges which will affect Nigerians negatively.
According to the BPE, since the responsibility of dockworkers lies with the Private Terminal Operators, NAMASA would be having stupendous funds it may not know how – and where – to spend it while the generality of Nigerians suffer the effect.
Mrs Olufunke Dinni, a top officer of the BPE, had told the National Assembly that “any reform that will rub-off negatively on Nigerians is no longer a reform” because since the PTOs must ensure that they do not run into a loss, the bulk of the 2.5 per cent charges would fall on Nigerians who will be the end-users of goods imported.”