Joy Anyim
A couple, said to have defrauded the Federal Government of N60 million, through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has been arrested.
The couple, Ogunseye Tunde and Oyelaja Fumilayo, had after the fraudulent act, reportedly eloped to Ghana.
Fumilayo, who works with Clearline International Limited, a Health Management Office (HMO), based in Lagos, had allegedly diverted the funds meant for health insurance to her personal account.
It was learnt that Fumilayo who had worked with the company since 2014, also indicted the HMO in the said fraud, saying the HMO trained her worker to also cheat the system.
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Fumilayo had after diverting the said amount, taken her annual leave early this year and absconded with her lover and accomplice Tunde, to Ghana.
The company had, however, uncovered the fraud after Fumilayo had left for her annual vacation.
The company had launched an investigation into the fraud as attempts to reach Fumilayo proved abortive.
The suspects were arrested and paraded by the Lagos Commissioner of Police, CP Zubairu Muazu, at the Police Officers’ Mess in Ikeja, on Monday.
While making confessional statement, Funmilayo, a mother of two said, “ I had worked with Clearline International Limited since 2014 to early 2019. What we do there is that we act as the middle man between NHIS and the hospitals.
“Our company cheat the system as they falsify records. When NHIS gives us money to pay hospitals and we do not spend all that was given to us, we do not refund the excess to NHIS purse, the company pockets the money.
“The money that I diverted on behalf of the company was N60 Million, but I diverted N38 million to my personal account. My bosses, Kolawole Samuel and Patricia Oteh were all involved in the fraud.
“It was an insider in my office that called my husband telling him that we should run away. So we ran to Ghana. It was however after they arrested my husband that I had to come out to tell the police the truth.”
Telling his own side of the story, Tunde said he knew about the fruad. He said, “ Fumilayo is my lover, she told me she wanted to travel out because she had defrauded her company and needed to run far. We left for Ghana early this year but I had to return some two weeks back when news reached me that my mother was dead. It was at her burial in Ogba that I was arrested.”
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Secretary of Clearline International Limited, Ijeoma Anyiam, also spoke on the development.
According to Anyiam, “ It was the day Funmilayo commenced her annual vacation that a hospital called that she has not paid them for some months.
“They said how she was doing it was that anytime they called, she will tell them that it will be resolved and since that was her portfolio, she will take money meant for another hospital, and pay them.
“So when they now complained and she was on vacation, someone else had to look into the matter and they found out we had paid on a particular date.
“We got their account number, investigated and that was how we found out the fraud.”
On what the company expects, Anyiam who is also the General Manager of the HMO said the company will corporate with the police in her investigation and ensure that those indicted in the company are brought to book.
