VIDEO: How Nigerian governor caught civil servants diverting health ministry’s documents’ to sell
“I was stunned to see that the vehicle was loading up for sale materials meant for our primary health care centres and general hospitals in the state,” the governor said.
by Chinagorom Ugwu · Premium TimesGovernor Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi State has ordered the arrest of six civil servants caught loading into a truck documents belonging to the state’s Ministry of Health without authorisation.
Mr Nwifuru uploaded a video clip on his Facebook page on Saturday which showed the civil servants loading the health documents into a waiting Toyota truck.
Some of the men in the video appeared to be the stockkeepers and buyers of the items.
How I caught them – Governor
In the video, Mr Nwifuru said he was on his way to inspect some projects and instinctively asked his convoy to reverse into the premises of the health ministry.
The governor said he saw the vehicle loaded up with some materials.
“I was stunned to see that the vehicle was loading up for sale materials meant for our primary health care centres and general hospitals in the state,” he said.
“Unfortunately, while we continue to make sincere efforts to meet the needs of our people, some are bent on sabotaging the system and our desires to give our people the best,” Mr Nwifuru stated.
The governor said in the clip that he had spotted the same vehicle within the same premises about four or five times before but did not suspect something was amiss until now.
Some of the materials included non-polio vaccination cards, daily antenatal registers, and child immunisation registers.
Some of the suspects claimed in the clip that the documents had been outdated.
They confessed that they sold the health documents for N120,000, but it is unclear if the sum was for all the documents.
Arrest and prosecution
Monday Uzor, the spokesperson to Mr Nwifuru, announced in a statement on Saturday that the governor ordered the arrest and prosecution of the six suspects.
Mr Uzor said the suspects had been handed over to the police for investigation.
He identified one of the suspects as Ndukwe Ayansi, adding that they would be prosecuted for diverting materials meant for the state’s Ministry of Health.
“It was also discovered that all the documents had been sold without government approval,” he said.