A revelation on how millions of naira were
funnelled into the bank accounts of ghost
medical doctors at the Federal Medical Centre,
Katsina, is currently tearing the hospital apart.
A forensic audit of 130 medical doctors in the
hospital between January and July this year
showed that over N8 million were paid into bank
accounts of medics who no longer work at the
health facility.
And the affected doctors, themselves, have
denied receiving any salary since they stopped
work at the hospital.
As members of the audit committee began
pushing for a wholesale audit of the entire
hospital – about 1,400 medical and non-medical
staff – they began receiving death threats,
sending some of them into hiding.
Ghost doctors
Last month, a forensic audit committee was set
up by the hospital management in conjunction
with the Nigerian Medical Association, the
Medical and Dental Consultants Association of
Nigeria, and the Association of Resident Doctors
to look into the personnel budget of the hospital.
The objective was to ascertain how much fund is
available for the approved skipping of a salary
grade by doctors, according to Suleiman Usman,
a member of the audit committee.
“Along the line, we now discovered that there
were some fictitious or ghost names that were
still in the personnel budget,” Dr. Usman, the
President of the Association of Resident Doctors
at the hospital, told PREMIUM TIMES over the
phone.
“These are names of doctors that had exited the
system either from last year or sometime early
this year. But they kept on recurring on the
payment vouchers with different account
numbers and different banks.
Dr. Usman said on a closer inspection, the
committee discovered that the account numbers,
although similar, didn’t belong to the people in
question.
“One, they had exited the system, two, we had
contacted them to get their account details but
the monies weren’t getting to them,” he said.
An analysis of the doctors’ pay register showed a
continuous channeling of government funds into
the bank accounts of ghost doctors.
For the month of January, 2015, five of the
doctors received a total of just over N1 million.
All five had left the services of the hospital a
year ago.
The same payment was repeated in February.
In March, the three doctors who were paid a
total of N626,000 had also left in 2014, after
their housemanship.
The pattern in March was repeated in April.
In May, six ghost doctors and an ‘NMA 500
Deduction’ gulped N1.3 million.
A similar pattern was repeated in June.
In July, four doctors who had also finished their
housemanship and left were also paid N805,000.
The finding was as shocking to members of the
audit committee – most of them doctors – as it
was embarrassing to the hospital management.
For instance, Opeyemi Oyewande, who finished
his housemanship since March this year
continued to be on the payroll until July.
But Dr. Oyewande’s bank details between
January and July 2015, which he availed the
audit committee, showed that he did not receive
the sums listed against his name between April
and July. And his December, 2014, salary was
paid on August 5, 2015.
Phone calls and text messages to Dr. Oyewande
were not responded to.
Threats to life
As members of the audit committee mounted
pressure on the hospital management to identify
the destination of the diverted funds as well as
request relevant heads of departments (non-
doctors) to verify salary payrolls; threat
messages began arriving.
On Friday, August 28, Bello Suleiman, the
Chairman of the Forensic Audit Committee,
received a text message on his phone. It reads:
“You Dr Bello and Dr Oyeyemi you the problem of
this hospital and i swear we are going to finish
both of you because what you are doing is too
much and wallahi wallahi you see.”
Five days later, it was the turn of Bashir
Oyeyemi, the Chairman of MDCAN at the
hospital and a member of the audit committee.
The first text message – sent from a phone
number different from that used for Dr. Suleiman
– was sent in two parts. The first one read: “You
dr oyeyemi&dr and others you the problems of
this hospital you normally enter into work in
every corner and you better take time if not we
are going to finish you one by one i swear you
all about to leave world play and see.” The
second part of the message merely said, “you
and dr bello.”
On September 7, Dr. Oyeyemi received another
text message from the same phone number:
“You dr oyeyemi we did forget our mission you
must die in this kt we are taking our time.”
PREMIUM TIMES called both phone numbers
from which the purported threat messages were
sent but the lines were switched off.
After the second threat was issued to the
doctors, members of the MDCAN held an
emergency general meeting at the hospital where
they noted that despite notifying the hospital
management after the first threat, no visible
steps were taken.
“In fact, management is reported to have
dismissed the threat as empty on the premise
that such threats are frequently received by
members of management and staff,” the doctors
noted in a statement issued at the end of the
meeting.
In a resolution passed at the meeting, which held
on September 7, the MDCAN members
announced an immediate indefinite and complete
withdrawal of their services until adequate
security is provided both at their homes and at
work.
They also suspended the activities of the audit
committee until every document requested is
provided and evidence of security is provided for
each committee member.
“Everyone implicated in perpetrating any
fraudulent diversion of public funds based on the
outcome of the forensic audit committee’s
findings must be brought to book and arrested
before our members will feel secure to resume
the provision of services,” the doctors stated in
their resolution.
premiumtimes report.
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