The Kogi State Auditor General, Alhaji Yusuf Okala has directed that Mrs Husseina Teni Mohammed of the state Teaching Service Commission (TSC) be issued a query for giving wrong information that she returned a salary excess mistakenly paid into her account.
Alhaji Yusuf noted that Mrs Mohammed misinformed the public that she had returned the money to the state treasury even when she did not received any alert to confirm such transactions.
The Auditor General explained that the officer only returned one point six million naira (#1.6M) on 3rd July this year out of the over one point eight million (#1.8M) she claimed to have returned six weeks earlier saying “the information has caused confusion in the system”.
He also directed that her salary be put on hold over the wrong information she gave the committee.
Earlier, the chairman Salary Reconciliation Committee, John Alayi explained that One million, eight hundred and thirteen thousand, one hundred and eighty six naira, ninety eight kobo (#1,813,186.98) was paid in excess to Mrs Mohammed because the statement from Teaching Service Commission mistakenly placed her on level sixteen while she was actually on grade level nine.
According to him, “the committee calculated the difference between grade level nine and grade level sixteen and paid the supposed arrears to the officers account but later discovered that one Hussein Mohammed also a staff of the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) was the one on grade level sixteen and not Mrs Husseina Mohammed”
It was reported that, Mrs Mohammed said she received an alert for the excess salary and immediately filled a teller for the transfer to the state treasury on 22nd May 2017.
Mrs Mohammed is a level seven accountant in the service of the Kogi State government, with a monthly salary approximately N34,000.
Recalled that in June during an interview with journalist in Lokoja, Mrs Mohammed said that she returned N1, 787, 550.98 to the state coffers credited to her account which contradicts the figures presented by the government which is #1,813,186.98).
She earlier explained how the money entered into her account.
“One morning,while shopping, my phone beeped, indicating a text message. Upon opening the folder containing the SMS, I saw that my salary account domiciled in Zenith Bank, Lokoja Branch had been credited with N1, 787, 550.98k. The text message stated that it was my salary for the month of March, 2017.”
Shocked, Mrs Mohammed told reporters that she read the message over and over again. Aside reading the message repeatedly, she took her time to count the figures displayed in the message. After a while, she abandoned the materials she had come to buy and found her way home.
On getting home, she narrated her experience to her husband. After a brief interaction, they decided to refund the money, saying that it was the right thing to do. Her husband, an employee of the TSC in Lokoja, was one of those affected by the just concluded screening exercise in the state. He disclosed that For 15 months, he argued that he had not received any salary from government.
