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Thursday 14 June 2012

Compulsory Leave: Oteh vows to fight board

The Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms Arunma Oteh, who has been under attack recently in relation to fund mismanagement, may be writing to Mr. President to reverse the order given by the members of the board that she must proceed on leave in order to allow an independent body to carry out an investigation on the Project 50 programme. It has been revealed that Oteh whose relationship with the presidency appears not to be too bad had vowed not to take the matter likely. A close aid to the DG had disclosed that Oteh was asked to go on leave because some people in the board were bent at simply tarnishing her good image as well as fighting for the extension of their tenure, knowing very well that the SEC boss may not extend their tenure. The source said, “You will recall that all the members of the SEC Board, apart from the DG, are due to end their tenure on the board this Friday, and so coming up with this kind of thing now, surely, seems like a bid to unduly extend their tenure. “However, Oteh has a lot of options open to her, and she will take the matter to her employer
to query the decision of the board in terms of due process and fairness. It is obvious that due process was not followed in all this.” SEC had issued a statement on Tuesday, directing that Oteh go on compulsory leave to allow the commission to examine issues arising from the recent investigation carried out on the capital market decline. The statement signed by the Secretary to the Commission, Mr. Edosa Aigbekan, said, “The Board of the SEC at its 66th meeting held on June 11, 2012, has directed the Director-General, Ms. Arunma Oteh, to proceed on compulsory leave to enable an independent investigation to be undertaken in respect of the Project 50 programme, which was carried out by the Commission in 2011. The Executive Commissioner (Operations), Ms. Daisy Ekineh, will act in her absence. “The decision of the board was arrived at after consideration of the report of its Audit and Finance Committee, which had been directed to investigate the sources and uses of funds for the Project 50 event. The statement further affirms “Among its conclusions, the committee recommended an independent audit of Project 50 and that the key actors in the management of the funds should be asked to step aside to allow an unhindered investigation.” But another inside source who spoke on the matter had blamed the board for taken such decision of sending Oteh on a compulsory leave, stating that the board does not need to do that for a proper investigation to be carried out on the matter. He said, “There have been some wild allegations against Oteh in recent times, to the effect that SEC’s Project 50 cost between N2bn and N3bn. The audit and finance committee of the board actually conducted investigation and asked questions about project 50, and they were given all the responses, including the precise cost of Project 50, which was no more than N155m. This is less than 10 per cent of N2bn. “It is very clear that they have their own agenda which they want to pursue and uphold. They are now talking about bringing in external auditors to investigate project 50, which Oteh fully welcomes.” Speaking on the rumour being currently speculated that Oteh was locked out of her office, the Spokesperson, SEC, Mr. Yakubu Olaleye, had totally debunked and frowned at the rumour mongers whom he said were out to destroy the integrity of the SEC boss with many baseless rumours “She was not locked out of office, that is not true, I have been in the office all day, and nothing like that happened here, I do not know where people are getting all these rumours from,” he stated.

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