Hospital official bags three years imprisonment over N4.6m fraud

A former revenue officer with the National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu, Mrs. Dorothy Chigozie Amalili, has been sentenced to three years in jail for defrauding the hospital of N4.6 million.

Amalili was sentenced to three years imprisonment by Justice K. Okpe of the Enugu State High Court, sitting in Enugu, the state capital on Wednesday.

The former revenue officer was sentenced to jail after the presiding judge said the defendant was found guilty of diverting N4,644.030.00 belonging to the hospital into personal use, the charge brought against her by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

The Commission, in an amended six-count charge, accused Amalili of knowingly furnishing false statements in respect of money received in order to conceal her actions while performing official duties as a revenue officer.

ICPC counsel, Enosa Omoghibo, told the court that her offences which were committed between February 2017 and December 2018, were contrary to Section 16 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 and punishable under the same section of the Act.

The lawyer said: “Amalili, while performing her duties would write the actual amounts collected from patients on the original copy of the receipts, while writing lesser amounts on the duplicate and triplicate copies of the same receipts kept in the Accounts Department for audit purposes, which enabled her to remit lesser sum of money than the actual amount collected to the hospital, thereby fraudulently retaining the difference.

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“She, through this deceitful means, was able to defraud the hospital of N4,644.030.00, over a period of time.”

Justice Okpe, at the conclusion of the trial, said the defendant was found guilty on all the six-count charge.

The presiding judge, therefore, sentenced Amalili to six months imprisonment for each of the counts which will run concurrently.

The convict was also given an option of a fine in lieu of custodial sentence by the judge for being a Person Living with Disability (PLWD) after her right leg was amputated due to a diabetic foot ulcer.

The conviction further include the former revenue officer making a refund of the entire sum she embezzled to the National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu.

TheStar