By Emma Ogbuehi
Tax consultancy firm, Alpha Beta LLP, has denied allegations levelled against it by its former Managing Director, Dapo Apara, accusing him, rather of diverting N6bn from the company.
Apara had in a writ of summons before a Lagos State High Court accused the company of being controlled by a former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, and making mysterious payments of over N20bn to several private accounts.
In a riposte however, Alpha Beta in a statement by its Managing Director, Akin Doherty, alleged that Apara was the one that had engaged in shady deals in fleecing the company of about $5m during his time as managing director by inflating a contract which was worth about $300,000 and then diverted a separate N6bn to personal use.
The company added that in apparent move to evade justice, Apara had scurried to Dubai.
The statement titled, ‘Alpha Beta: Facts of the Matter’, accused Apara of being an aggrieved ex-employee bent on rubbishing the image of the company after his sackfor financial malfeasance.
The statement read in part, “The fact is that Dapo Apara began making his untrue allegations in the aftermath of his removal as Managing Director of Alpha Beta for fraud and unethical practices. While he was MD, Apara used his position to siphon huge sums of money from the company including but not limited to fraudulently converting $5m; money allegedly used to pay for cloud based services that were eventually discovered to be worth less than $300,000.
“Mr. Apara, who was a signatory to all the bank accounts of Alpha Beta from inception until his removal, received all his payments and entitlements until June 2018 when he was removed after his fraudulent misconduct was discovered.
“In July 2018 further evidence of his fraudulent and unethical practices was uncovered, including the revelation that he converted approximately N6bn belonging to Alpha Beta to his personal use.
“This fraud was reported to the authorities and Mr. Apara was subsequently invited to return to Nigeria from his hiding place in Dubai to render account. To date, he has refused to do so. Instead, Mr. Apara chose to embark on an aggressive smear campaign seemingly in an effort to blackmail us into ending the investigations into his misconduct.”
