NAICOM may prosecute ex-directors, for alleged fraud in Goldlink -By Omobola Tolu-Kusimo

Following the allegations of fraud by KPMG against former directors of Goldlink Insurance Plc, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) may prosecute those indicted, The Nation has learnt.
NAICOM on November 1, 2012 took over the management of Goldlink when it became clear that there were anomalies and misstatements in the audited financial statements of the company for the year ended December 31, 2011.
The commission reconstituted a seven-man interim Board of Directors headed by James Ayo to oversee the affairs of the company.
It also engaged KPMG to carry out forensic investigation on the true financial position of the company.
Unveiling the report of the forensic investigation at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2011 to 2014, Ayo said the investigation confirmed the observation of NAICOM that various abnormalities identified in the 2011 financial statement were attempts to conceal the company’s true financial position.

He disclosed that some irregularities were perpetuated by the former executives and staff of the company, adding that there was a  breakdown of corporate governance typified by the former non-executive chairman’s presence in the office.
He explained that the interim management board instituted a share capital audit, which revealed that about 2.5 billion shares were inappropriately issued to selected shareholders without considerations into the company.
He said: “To support the creation of these bubble shares, the Head Office Building and other assets were revalued and inflated by about N1.5 billion. The revaluation surplus was used in part to create these shares against sound accounting standards and principles.
“Currently, the interim management board has recovered 1.2 billion shares through voluntary surrender and about 134 million shares by way of forfeiture.
“The interim board also found out  that about 1.2 billion share unit have been disposed of by some of the beneficiaries, and that the interim management board has commenced the process of recovering the disposed shares and associated dividends of about N125 million.”
The Commission’s spokesman, Rasaaq Salami, in an interview, said the Commission prompted the company to hold its AGM.
He said they were sure the shareholders had been informed of developments in the company.
Salami stressed that the Commission would not treat any issue that has to do with fraud with levity.
“NAICOM will not treat any issue that has to do with fraud with levity. Rather it will ensure that the interest of policyholders are protected. The Commission ensured the company held its annual general meeting so that shareholders and the general public can know what is going on with the company.
“The report has been forwarded to the appropriate department of the Commission to determine the next line of action. What we want to achieve is to ensure the company gets better than we met it,” he said.

Culled from Nation

Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed-By Sarah Kaplan

 

Noela Rukundo (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Noela Rukundo sat in a car outside her home, watching as the last few mourners filed out. They were leaving a funeral — her funeral.
Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband put his hands on his head in horror.
“Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.
Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days ago, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime.
Now here was his wife, standing before him. In an interview with the BBC Thursday, Rukundo recalled how he touched her shoulder to find it unnervingly solid. He jumped. Then he started screaming.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he wailed.
But it was far too late for apologies; Rukundo called the police. The husband, Balenga Kalala, ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison for incitement to murder, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC).
The happy ending — or, as happy as can be expected to a saga in which a man tries to have his wife killed — was made possible by three unusually principled hit men, a helpful pastor and one incredibly gutsy woman: Rukundo herself.
Here is how she pulled it off.
Rukundo’s ordeal began almost exactly a year ago, when she flew from her home in Melbourne with her husband, Kalala, to attend a funeral in her native Burundi. Her stepmother had died and the service left her saddened and stressed. She retreated to her hotel room in Bujumbura, the capital, early in the evening; despondent after the events of the day, she lay down in bed. Then her husband called.
“He told me to go outside for fresh air,” she told the BBC.
But the minute Rukundo stepped out of her hotel, a man charged forward, pointing a gun right at her.
“Don’t scream,” she recalled him saying. “If you start screaming, I will shoot you. They’re going to catch me, but you? You will already be dead.”
Rukundo, terrified, did as she was told. She was ushered into a car and blindfolded so she couldn’t see where she was being taken. After 30 or 40 minutes, the car came to a stop, and Rukundo was pushed into a building and tied to a chair.

She could hear male voices, she told the ABC. One asked her, “You woman, what did you do for this man to pay us to kill you?”
“What are you talking about?” Rukundo demanded.
“Balenga sent us to kill you.”
They were lying. She told them so. And they laughed.
“You’re a fool,” they told her.
There was the sound of a dial tone, and a male voice coming through a speakerphone. It was her husband’s voice.
“Kill her,” he said.
And Rukundo fainted.
Rukundo had met her husband 11 years earlier, right after she arrived in Australia from Burundi, according to the BBC. He was a recent refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and they had the same social worker at the resettlement agency that helped them get on their feet. Since Kalala already knew English, their social worker often recruited him to translate for Rukundo, who spoke Swahili.
They fell in love, moved in together in the Melbourne suburb of Kings Park, and had three children (Rukundo also had five kids from a previous relationship). She learned more about her husband’s past — he had fled a rebel army that had ransacked his village, killing his wife and young son. She also learned more about his character.
“I knew he was a violent man,” Rukundo told the BBC. “But I didn’t believe he can kill me.”
But, it appeared, he could.
Rukundo came to in the strange building somewhere near Bujumbura. The kidnappers were still there, she told the ABC.
They weren’t going to kill her, the men then explained — they didn’t believe in killing women, and they knew her brother. But they would keep her husband’s money and tell him that she was dead. After two days, they set her free on the side of a road, but not before giving her a mobile phone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they allegedly received in payment, according to Australia’s The Age.
“We just want you to go back, to tell other stupid women like you what happened,” Rukundo said she was told before the gang members drove away.
Shaken, but alive and doggedly determined, Rukundo began plotting her next move. She sought help from the Kenyan and Belgian embassies to return to Australia, according to The Age. Then she called the pastor of her church in Melbourne, she told the BBC, and explained to him what had happened. Without alerting Kalala, the pastor helped her get back home to her neighborhood near Melbourne.
Meanwhile, her husband had told everyone she had died in a tragic accident and the entire community mourned her at her funeral at the family home. On the night of Feb. 22, 2015, just as the widower Kalala waved goodbye to neighbors who had come to comfort him, Rukundo approached him, the very man whose voice she’d heard over the phone five days earlier, ordering that she be killed.
“I felt like somebody who had risen again,” she told the BBC.
Though Kalala initially denied all involvement, Rukundo got him to confess to the crime during a phone conversation that was secretly recorded by police, according to The Age.

“Sometimes Devil can come into someone, to do something, but after they do it they start thinking, ‘Why I did that thing?’ later,” he said, as he begged her to forgive him.
Kalala eventually pleaded guilty to the scheme. He was sentenced to nine years in prison by a judge in Melbourne.
“Had Ms Rukundo’s kidnappers completed the job, eight children would have lost their mother,” Chief Justice Marilyn Warren said, according to the ABC. “It was premeditated and motivated by unfounded jealousy, anger and a desire to punish Ms. Rukundo.”
Rukundo said that Kalala tried to kill her because he thought she was going to leave him for another man — an accusation she denies.
But her trials are not yet over. Rukundo told the ABC she’s gotten backlash from Melbourne’s Congolese community for reporting Kalala to the police. Someone left threatening messages for her, and she returned home one day to find her back door broken. She now has eight children to raise alone, and has asked the Department of Human Services to help her find a new place to live.
And lying in bed at night, Kalala’s voice still comes to her: “Kill her, kill her,” she told the BBC. “Every night, I see what was happening in those two days with the kidnappers.”
Despite all that, “I will stand up like a strong woman,” she said. “My situation, my past life? That is gone. I’m starting a new life now.”

Culled from morning mix in washinton post 

Moment masked gunmen executed company boss revealed by worker tied up in horror raid -By Martin Fricker , Adam Aspinall

Mohammed Ashraf says two men in balaclavas burst into the warehouse, asked for businessmen Akhtar Javeed and led him away to be shot

Victim: Akhtar Javeed was shot in the neck

A friend of a businessman shot dead by masked gunmen has told of the terrifying moment his boss was executed during a suspected warehouse robbery.
Akhtar Javeed, 56, was blasted to death after he and three colleagues were tied up by two raiders when they burst into the business waving guns.
The balaclava-wearing suspects then identified the married father-of-four as the boss before leading him away.
Mohammad Ashraf, 48, one of the men tied up by the attackers, told the Mirror: “They were wearing masks and had guns, and tied the four of us up.
“Then they asked for Akhtar and took him away. I can’t remember if they said his name or asked for the boss.

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“The next thing is I heard the gunshot. I didn’t know what had happened.
“I didn’t see it, but it sounded like an execution. I freed one hand and rang the police on the landline.”
Armed police raced to the scene and found Mr Javeed with a gunshot wound to the neck.
Eyewitnesses described seeing him lying in a pool of blood in the road outside the warehouse near Birmingham city centre on Wednesday.

Mystery: Forensics officers at the scene

The Porsche-driving businessman, from Upton Park, East London, was still alive, but could not be saved and died a short time later in hospital.
West Midlands Police said the two murder suspects fled the scene in a getaway car and remain on the loose. It is believed Mr Javeed moved his catering supplies firm to Birmingham in 2014 after failed ventures in London.


He stayed in the West Midlands during the week and returned to his family home in London at weekends.
His wife Aisha was too upset to talk yesterday and was being comforted by relatives. Mr Javeed had four children – daughter Lilas, 30, son Sofiane, 24, and two younger sons Miran, 11 and nine-year-old Adyan.

Investigation: Police comb the scene

Mr Javeed’s friend and ex-colleague Talat Butt told the Mirror: “I’ve been told by people who were there that one man put Akhtar’s hand behind his back and another held him at gunpoint, and said, ‘give us the key to the safe’.
“Some other workers were in the other room being held by another gunman. They heard a gunshot outside and the robbers ran.”
Mr Butt, 49, added: “I’ve spoken to the family and everyone is very sad. He didn’t have any enemies. He was a very good person and everybody liked him.”
West Midlands Police said: “We believe this was a targeted attack and the purpose of the attack was robbery.”

Culled from The Mirror

22-yr-old surrenders to police after killing cousin over girlfriend

By Tom Moses
Just like Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s play of same name, murdered sleep and could no longer sleep, 22-year-old Ndifreke Joseph Clement, disturbed by sleepless nights and traumatic experiences after murdering his 23-year-old cousin, Ubong Edet, surrendered himself to police six months after the crime.

Clement… I don’t have peace of mind anymore.

Clement, a native of Akon Itam, Itu Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, who handed himself over to police at Ikot Akpan Abia, Uyo, said he slashed his cousin’s throat after beating him to coma because Edet slept with his girlfriend in August 2015.
He told Vanguard: “I cannot remember the exact date now, but it occurred in a night in August 2015 in the one room apartment we shared. On that day, I returned from work to meet the door locked.
“I knocked on the door and waited for over five minutes before my cousin could come to open the door. When I went into the room, I saw my girlfriend weeping and blood running from her nostrils.
“I asked her what happened and she said Ubong beat, wounded and forcefully had sex with her. But after opening the door for me, Ubong went away and did not come back until very late in the night.
‘We fought for a very long time’
“When I asked him why he did what he did to my girlfriend, he started punching me and I retaliated.
“We fought for a very long time before I could subdue him. I then picked my cow-butchering knife and cut his throat, carried his dead body and dumped it in the bush very close to the house and threw the knife into the pit toilet.
“I have brought myself to the police even when nobody knew that I killed him. I have come to plead for forgiveness because since I killed my cousin, I no longer have peace of mind. I am always disturbed in my mind and dream.”
The Akwa Ibom State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, ASP Cordelia Nwawe, said the suspect would be arraigned for the court to decide whether he had any right to take the life of another person.

Culled from Vanguard

Expectant couples avoiding Latin America, other Zika hotspots - By Jeffrey Dastin and Malathi Nayak

.

People read zika virus flyers from an information campaign by the Chilean Health Ministry at the departures …

By Jeffrey Dastin and Malathi Nayak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Expectant couples planning "babymoon" vacations are increasingly steering clear of Latin America and the Caribbean amid warnings about a suspected link between a Zika virus outbreak in the region and birth defects, travel agents say.Airlines and hotel chains say it is too early to tell if the Zika epidemic is affecting bookings. But some “babymooners” - parents-to-be taking last-hurrah vacations - have backed out of trips and changed itineraries.
“There’s been a lot of cancellations,” said Lauren Machowsky, a travel advisor at New York-based SmartFlyer. “Some people are freaked out."
Machowsky, who is herself expecting a child and called off a planned vacation to Anguilla, said she is redirecting a lot of people to Florida and pointing clients to travel warnings issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“I refer them to the CDC website and say, ‘Listen, this is my experience. I was going away and had to cancel,’” Machowsky said.
On Monday, the World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak an emergency because of evidence that the mosquito-borne virus is linked to a spike in birth defects in Brazil. The current outbreak has spread to at least 25 countries and territories, most of them in the Americas. The CDC has advised pregnant women to avoid travel to areas with an active Zika outbreak.
Parenting website babycenter.com asked pregnant readers with plans to travel to Zika-affected areas if they would change course. About half of 1,118 respondents said they planned to cancel, and 27 percent said they were keeping their plans. The rest were undecided.
New Hampshire-based travel agent Darcy Allen, of Travel by Darcy, said she’s had a handful of cancellations and estimated 80 percent of her babymoon clients are avoiding Mexico.
“It’s certainly a factor in deciding where they want to go," said Allen.
In another sign of Zika’s impact on travelers, sales of trip cancellation insurance have surged among people booking Latin American vacations, RoamRight, a top U.S. provider, told Reuters on Monday.
Newlyweds hoping to start a family also are cautiously evaluating honeymoon options, said New Jersey-based Mindy Gilbert of My Vacation Lady.
"I have been asking personal questions like, 'Are you pregnant? Do you plan on conceiving,' - something I’ve never asked before," she said.
One couple that had hoped to spend their honeymoon in Mexico’s Riviera Maya is now waiting to see how the virus situation develops, she said.
Several travel agents said they were steering clients toward Europe and Hawaii.
Ilonka Molijn, founder of Netherlands-based BabyMoon Travel, said visiting Mexico and the Caribbean was not a huge draw for her clients before the Zika outbreak, but now "there isn’t any interest in it at all.”
Concerns are extending beyond babymooners and honeymooners.
Florida-based Travel Planners Inc owner Marieanne Syverson said 70 percent of her clients in January - only a small portion of whom were honeymooners - had asked about Zika. A few are rethinking their plans, she said, but she’s had no cancellations.

“People are considering different destinations, absolutely," she said. "Those who were thinking of Puerto Rico or Brazil for Carnival and the Olympics are thinking maybe they shouldn’t go there.”

(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin and Malathi Nayak in New York; Writing by Christian Plumb; Editing by Lisa Girion)

Culled from Reuters

Governors have become emperors, says Obasanjo -By Sam Oluwalana and Ikechukwu Onyewuchi

Obansanjo

• Ex-leader warns of rising debts • Anyaoku calls for return to regionalism
• C’Wealth ex-scribe wants geo-political zones converted to federating units
FOR former President Olusegun Obasanjo, some governors in the country are not really engaged in the business of governing their states with the overall objective of improving the lives of the citizens. Rather, they have turned themselves into emperors in their states.
Equally lamenting the state of affairs in the country, former Commonwealth Secretary- General, Emeka Anyaoku, has said that for Nigeria to survive the harsh effects of its political structure amid dwindling government revenue, it must revert to regionalism, such that the six geo-political zones will become federating units.
Obasanjo who spoke at the inauguration conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, Ibadan yesterday said some state governors had turned themselves into emperors and that they had even appropriated the funds belonging to the local councils in their states into their private estates.

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The former president, who said corruption was the worst legacy bequeathed to the country by bad governance by some past administrations, also said Nigeria may experience another debt overhang as happened during his first term in office when his administration negotiated an $18 billion debt relief from the Paris Club.
“The drastic reduction in the prices of crude oil in the international market, has unraveled the weakness of governance in Nigeria. The Minister of Finance recently announced that the 2016 budget deficit may be increased from N2.2 trillion in the draft document now before the National Assembly to N3 trillion, due to the decline in the price of petroleum. That means that our budget will be 50 % deficit. I wonder… I  really wonder.
He continued: “If the current fiscal challenge is not critically addressed, Nigeria may be on its way to another episode of debt overhang. You may recall that a few years ago, we rescued Nigeria from its creditors. Things were bad, they really, really were bad. My first year as an elected President of Nigeria, we were spending over three billion dollars to service our debts, and even then, the quantum of debts were not reducing.
“Anytime we were not able to pay those debts, they piled up at a punishing rate. So we moved from $18 billion to $30 billion, until we were in the region of $35 billion. It was not pretty. We were lucky that we finally met with the Paris Club and other creditors and we were able to obtain a $18 billion debt forgiveness, it was the largest African debt cancellation that has ever taken place.”
He went on: “Nigeria was able to use the money realised from the sales of crude oil to pay off the sum of outstanding debts and interests and we were able to end up with the debt of only $3 billion. It is indeed important for us as Nigerians to ask questions about the government’s ability to deal with all these mounting economic developments.’’
The former Commonwealth General-Secretary, in a lecture titled “Nigeria: In urgent need of a truer federalism”, delivered at the inaugural lecture of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), Ibadan noted that failed experiments at reviewing the country’s constitution in which there had been consistent calls for creation of more states was a sign of dissatisfaction of Nigerians and a failure of governance.
According to him, “In this age of rising global move away from the use of fossil fuel, and particularly in this period of continuing fall in the price of crude oil, the constitution must enable the country to plan and pursue a non-crude-oil-based economic development. It must also address the issue of concentration of power at the centre, which fuels the destabilising competition for the control of the centre between the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups.
“Instead of the present structure of 36 economically unviable states with concentrated political power at the centre, the National Assembly should convert the existing six geopolitical zones, which have been recognised and are being used for a number of political decisions and actions, into the more viable federating units of a truly Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Proposing that Nigeria’s 36 states can be retained as development zones within the regions but without full administrative paraphernalia, he said that it would be up to the six federating regions to consider and meet any demands for the creation of new development zones within them.
According to him, it is inexcusable that Nigeria is endowed with so many untapped solid minerals, and such vast arable land for significant agricultural production, and these resources have remained inadequately exploited for the benefit of its citizens of whom no less than 70 percent still live in massive poverty.
He added : “As more viable units for planning and attracting investments in larger development projects, the six regions will facilitate the necessary shift from the present philosophy and reliance by the 36 states on ‘sharing the national cake’, to focusing on production and internally generated revenue within the regions. In addition, internal security and crime control can be more effectively managed by the people in the regions who know and are more familiar with the local environment.”
Providing a probable structure for operation, he said: “The Federal Government should retain exclusive powers over federal matters and related institutions including Finance and Monetary Policy, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Customs, Aviation, Maritime, Minerals (Liquid and Solid), Internal Security (but liaising with regional security agencies), Judiciary ( but only the Supreme Court), Education ( but only Federal Universities and supervision of standards for all tertiary  institutions), Health (only Federal Universities’ Teaching Hospitals including at least one state-of-the-art specialist hospital per region), and federal highways and railways.
“The six federating regions should have responsibility over their fiscal matters, law and order (including the police), education, health, power (to be shared with the centre), transportation (roads & inland waterways), and economic development (investments, agriculture).
“The federally-generated revenue should be allocated on the following basis: 40 percent to be retained by the Federal Government for its substantially reduced responsibilities with up to 15% of revenue derived from minerals (solid & liquid) going to the mineral-producing areas for addressing the resultant environmental damage; 60 percent to be shared equally among the six federating regions.”
He called for a change of heart by politicians if the restructuring of the country would ever come to fruition, adding : “While it would be necessary to have the right governance structure, it would also be important that the people operating the structure are no longer imbued with the characteristics of today’s Nigeria’s political class.”

Culled from Guardian

What is the Bedroom Tax and why is it a problem? Full guide as victims win court victory - By Dan Bloom

What is the bedroom tax? Does it affect you? And why is today's victory a big deal? Here's everything you need to know

Getty

Hated: But what exactly is the bedroom tax?

Bedroom tax victims are victorious after the Court of Appeal ruled the Tories' policy is discriminatory today .
So what is the hated tax, and why is it such a problem?
Here's our 60-second guide to the facts and main controversies around the policies.
It's worth brushing up. Today's ruling by no means cancels the policy in the future - it only says it discriminates against certain groups.

And Iain Duncan Smith's officals have already said they will take their fight all the way to Britain's highest judges in the Supreme Court.
Here's everything you need to know.

What is the Bedroom Tax?

The cruel tax was launched by the Tories in April 2013 and increases the rent people have to pay if they have "extra" rooms.
The government says the policy encourages people to move to smaller properties, freeing up space and saving £480m a year from the housing benefit bill.
The Tories don't like people using the phrase "bedroom tax". The policy's official name is the "removal of the spare room subsidy".

Who does it affect?

It hits working-age people who live in social housing and claim housing benefit .
Pensioners are not affected under the scheme. Nor are people in private rented homes or who do not claim housing benefit.

How much do you lose?

Cut: People receive 14% less housing benefit if they have a "spare" room

Under the scheme people have 14% less net rent covered by housing benefit if they have a "spare" room.
If they have two or more spare rooms, they receive 25% less housing benefit towards their rent.
According to housing charity Shelter, for someone who pays £120 a week rent themselves that's £16.80 extra for one spare room, or £30 extra for two spare rooms.
That means some victims having to find an extra £1,560 a year .

What counts as a spare bedroom?

Under the rules, one room is allowed for an adult couple and every person over 16 .
For under-16s , the rules say children must share two to a room if they're of the same sex.
Two under-10s must share a room even if they're of the opposite sex.
There are exceptions for children who can't share a room because of a medical condition or for a carer providing overnight-only care .

Why are people angry?

Getty

Anger: The fight has gone to the Court of Appeal - and the Supreme Court is next

First of all there have been unintended consequences from glitches and loopholes in the law, as today's case shows.
Campaigners have also said there is a shortage of smaller flats. That means tenants are penalised while they sit on waiting lists even if they try to move out.
Hundreds of millions of pounds have had to be spent on emergency funds called discretionary housing payments (DHPs) to cover the gap for families in need.

Culled from Mirror