Kano dismisses three directors, others for fraud

The Kano State Government has dismissed six of its officials, including three directors, over an alleged fraud.
The state’s Commissioner for Land and Physical Planning, Alhaji Muhammed Yahaya, confirmed the dismissal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Tuesday.
Yahaya said the affected officials were found guilty of inflating money meant for the payment of compensation to owners of lands acquired by the government for development projects.
He said that the officials were staff of the state’s Urban Planning and Development Agency and the Survey Department in the Ministry of Land and Physical Planning.
He said: “The offence was committed some years ago and had been found to be behind several illegal buildings in the state.
“It is true that three directors and three officials of the Survey Department were found to have inflated the actual money meant for the payment of compensation to land owners.”
Yahaya said that the officials had submitted a report, which was found be suspicious, and the government ordered an investigation.
“For example, where they are expected to pay N5 million as compensation, they inflated it to N50 million and where it is N6 million, they paid N60 million.”
Yahaya said that the case was forwarded to the state’s Civil Service Commission, which found the officials guilty after investigations.
The commissioner said the commission recommended that the officials be sacked to serve as a deterrent to others who might contemplate doing the same thing.
He warned that government would not tolerate fraudulent activities from any civil servant.