THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has commenced investigation into an alleged act of fraud rocking the accounts and commercial departments of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

Daily Sun learnt that some staff of FAAN saddled with the management of funds for the execution of key airport proj­ects had diverted money into their private accounts, thus stalling the projects.

It was learnt yesterday that following complaints and pe­titions to relevant government agencies, the EFCC stormed the airport agency and arrest­ed and detained all the prime suspects.

A senior official of FAAN who confirmed the incident told aviation correspondents that the affected staff had been suspended.

“The accused were said to have diverted the agency’s funds into different accounts of staff and others over certain period of time until they were eventually discovered by the management of FAAN,” said the official.

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“When this fraud was dis­covered, the management set up a committee, which investigated the major suspect who promptly named others involved in the fraud and they were swiftly suspended.

“It was after the committee had concluded interrogating the main suspect that she con­fessed that some of the mon­ies were sent to her brother’s accounts, and this confession prompted the management to further invite more sus­pects who were subsequently suspended,” added the official who preferred to remain anony­mous.

He said FAAN had con­cluded plans to set up an audit team to carry out further probes of financial transactions in the agency. The objective of the au­dit is to carry out investigation on the activities of the person­nel in the accounts and com­mercial departments, to close all loopholes in the sources of revenues and to ensure that all revenues are captured and ac­counted for.

After the audit, FAAN is to adopt a policy of rotating its personnel in the accounts and commercial departments ev­ery two years so that no person would stay in one unit for more than that period of time, noting that people think of perpetrat­ing fraud and all kinds of mal­feasance when they stay too long in one post.

It expressed the hope that EFCC would unravel the de­tails of the fraud, punish those involved and also work with management of FAAN to forestall such from happening again.