Following a report by an online medium that the sum of N750 million was stolen following a fraudulent contract scheme, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN has described the accusation of theft as a ‘low and unsubstantiated blow’.
The agency however admitted an incident of a breach of the procurement process in February 2020.
This was disclosed in a series of tweets posted by FAAN, through its official Twitter handle on Thursday, July 30, 2020.
“Allegations of a stolen N750 million from the coffers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is entirely wrong, as no funds to the tune of any amount were approved or ever went missing due to a fraudulent contract. The accusation of the theft was just a low and unsubstantiated blow that would have been better clarified instead of going out to run the organization down.
The Managing Director himself discovered and queried some procurement documents in February 2020. When the answers to the queries were found unsatisfactory, an investigation was launched, the staff involved were suspended, and later replaced in their official capacities.
The recommendations of the management investigation were forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Aviation in June 2020. All this is fully documented and in line with federal civil service procedures,’’ the statement said.
Also speaking on the issue of half salary to members of staff as was also reported by the online medium, a source in FAAN said due to paucity of funds, management decided to ease the burden of expenditure for all staff in view of the big Sallah on Friday by paying half salary to all senior staff only, with the balance to be paid next week.
All FAAN junior staff were paid their full 100% salaries (that is GLs 1-7). It also stated that a notice to this effect was on all FAAN staff platforms since yesterday and the unions later got to know of it.
