Nigeria loses N40bn annually to employment fraud, says Olukoyede

Ola Olukoyede, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says Nigeria loses over N40 billion to employment fraud annually.

Olukoyede spoke on Friday during a meeting with officials of the Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja.

The EFCC boss said a research he conducted in 2007 before joining the agency showed that employers and employees were also defrauding each other.

“In 2007, way back before I came to the EFCC, I did research into employment fraud, covering how employers defraud their staff and how employees also perpetrate fraud against their employers. I discovered way back then that Nigeria lost over N40 billion every year to employment fraud,” Olukoyede said.

He said when he assumed office as EFCC chairman, the agency saved the country billions of naira after discovering that many unemployed people were on the federal government’s payroll.

Olukoyede said corruption and financial crimes are the greatest problems bedeviling Nigeria’s economic growth.

“Eventually, when I became chief of staff in the EFCC, we investigated the IPPIS platform and discovered that a lot of people collected salaries when they were not in the employment of the government, and we were able to save the government billions of naira,” he added.

“As I am talking to you, we are still investigating that because the crooks keep on bringing up new strategies, while we also continue to devise new means of checkmating them.”

He promised the NECA delegation, led by the director-general Adewale Oyerinde, of the EFCC’s collaboration towards making workers embrace best practices.

The NECA DG sought the collaboration of the two agencies to eradicate money laundering and cybercrime in the private sector.

“We are here to seek collaboration with the EFCC in whatever context and partnership in tackling the issue,” Oyerinde said.

“In specific terms, we are looking at having joint workshops on the role of the private sector in reducing or eradicating the menace of money laundering, cyber crime and identity thefts, which are becoming the major concern not only to you as EFCC, but also to us as organised businesses.”