N750m Currency Contract: EFCC Quizzes, Releases ex-Mint MD

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has released Ehi Okomoyon, former managing director of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC), after being quizzed over alleged N750million Polymer notes contract.

Okoyomon also forced to retire over the alleged N2 billion missing notes from the Mint under his leadership was arrested on Sunday by operatives of the anti-graft agency in Abuja.

Okomoyon’s arrest allegedly followed reports on the alleged scam sent to the EFCC by the Australian police.

He was quizzed by investigators at the EFCC Abuja office on relation to the Australian polymer banknotes bribery scam.

Nigerian officials allegedly received bribes for Securency, a note-printing firm partly owned by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which handled the polymer banknotes contract.

A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, was quizzed by the EFCC in January in connection with the probe.

The polymer technology is used to print the N5, N10, N20 and N50 notes.

A festering scandal has surrounded the printing of polymer notes by the Central Bank of Nigeria after an Australian newspaper ‘The Age’ that blew the scam open, reported that Securency International, a company that manufactures polymer used in banknotes in 28 countries, paid kickbacks to secure polymer note printing contracts in some countries, including Nigeria.

The sum of N750 million is said to have been paid to bribe Nigerian officials.

At the Nigerian end of the international swindle, the newspaper reported that Securency International, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia, paid millions of dollars into the offshore bank accounts of two British-based businessmen for onward transfer to some top Nigerian government functionaries and CBN officials to win the 2006 polymer printing contract.