Effiong Umoh, Director General, DG, of the Cross River State Traffic Management & Regulatory Agency, TRAMA, has been invited to appear before a five-man panel set up by the state government, to answer to a 10-count charge bothering on financial irregularities in the discharge of his functions as DC.
Documents sighted by www.calitown.com show that, Umoh is expected to answer to why collection of penalties and fines from traffic offenders was done by hand through one Victor Epele, a non-staff of the Agency, believed to be his younger brother. He will also be quizzed on his allocation of government office space to the said brother, when board members have neither tables, chairs or office spaces.
He is suspected of depriving the Internal Auditor posted to the Agency office accommodation, appointing rather, a personal auditor for the Agency, one Emmanuel Inyang as well as a record of collecting N3,000,000 (three million naira) weekly and N12,000,000 (twelve million naira) monthly from the charge ticket which he suspectedly transferred to his personal Ecobank Account, with details: 0201008293, Name: Effiong Umoh.
Furthermore, he will answer to suspectedly imposing outrageous levies up to the sum of N150,000 or more to individuals that contravene traffic regulations which is unlawful, setting up six enforcement teams with a target of arresting at least 11 defaulting vehicles per day, outright refusal of any senior administrative officer or Director posted to the Agency, receiving the sum of N3,500,000 (three million five hundred thousand naira) only, being imprest of the Agency for the month of July, August and September and depositing same in his private account, the diversion of the sum of N6,000,000 (six million naira) being money approved by the state governor for professional training of marshals into his private account and embezzlement of the Agency’s monthly imprest.
Orok B. Orok, Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Secretary to the State Governor, will lead the panel, supported by Etta James, Director, Human Resources, Office of the Head of Service, Bentem Brian, Office of the Auditor General, Gloria Lukpata, Director in the Ministry of Finance and a representative from the state Internal Revenue Service.
Umoh was unavailable for his side of the story at press time.
