The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has clarified that it was not the primary target of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), whose officials stormed the Commission’s premises on Monday.
A source told Vanguard that the operatives’ visit was about a company in the ongoing $2.1 billion arms scandal.
It was gathered that the operatives were received by the deputy director of finance, who provided requested details.
The source disclosed that the company under investigation belongs to a former government official in the past administration and is one of the companies that won the bid for the digitalization programme of NBC.
The Commission is being scrutinized because the EFCC discovered that it stood as a guarantor to the company to secure a banking loan.
“The EFCC officials actually came to NBC, but they came to clarify certain information they got in the course of their investigation about the ongoing $2.1 billion arms deal by the former National Security Adviser. It wasn’t anything to do with NBC directly,” said the source.
“The claim by some media reports that the EFCC officials went away with some staff of NBC was not true, as the director of finance they claimed, Mr. Patrick Areh had been on leave, and the Director-General was on working leave and couldn’t have been in the office as at the time of the visit.
“Knowing EFCC, they do not give information when they want to visit anybody, so the report that the directors at NBC got the wind of EFCC coming and ran away was out of place.
“If they want to visit for investigation, it is always impromptu. The DG has resumed because of this development and he has not been invited by EFCC. I repeat, the issue has nothing to do with NBC or its directors.
“They just got information of what they were looking for and left. And nobody in NBC has been invited back to EFCC. We still carry on with our responsibility. I don’t think, giving out additional information to help out EFCC in the course of their job is bad.
“All the officers in the commission were available, except the DG and two other director of finance, who has been on leave since 22 December and a few directors because of the season.
“The investigation is not bothering us, every staff is on duty, the DG is also around and nobody has been invited”, he added.
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