Eatrich Farms, an agrotech business, recently made news headlines, after the arrest of its six staff and investors.
Revelations has it that the staff members and investors of the company were arrested for physical assault, a charge levelled against them by Bisi Dazuza, Eatrich Farms’ Group Managing Director, for daring to demand their almost N1 billion arrears.
“When they came to my office yesterday, they beat me and I even had a seizure in the process,” Dazuza stated as she justified the reason she reported the case to the Police. “One of them threatened to kill me. After vandalising my property, they stole my money and laptop.”
However, while controversies have continued to trail the ineptitude of Eatrich Fams to pay its staff and investors, Newsrand learnt how the company manipulated its employees to open accounts with Sterling Bank.
The accounts which were mandated to be opened with Sterling Bank, according to our sources, was with the aim of using it to access loans.
It was gathered that Eatrich Farms needed the loans in order to fund its businesses and the company’s leadership asked its staff to get the loans on behalf of it.
“While I was working with Eatrich Firms, Sterling Bank came up with an agro project which was brought to us. In order to access this loan, Sam Afolabi said all employees should open accounts and request loans, after which we should submit all the details to one of the heads of departments.
“But considering my smartness, it just didn’t make sense to me. How will I open a bank account and give you the details? To worsen the situation, he told us his company would access loans via our accounts and just give us stipends. I refused to do it because of the risks I sensed. I couldn’t think of paying another person’s loan. It was just nonsense to me, “former assistant operations manager of the company Ayeni Dolapo stated.
Corroborating Dolapo’s claims, a middle-aged man who worked with Eatrich Farm’s founder as his personal photographer, said although he’s no longer with the company, his bank account with Sterling Bank was used to collect a loan facility.
“One of the many issues am into with Eatrich Farms is the loan Afolabi used his staff members to apply for from Sterling Bank, and as I tell you this, there is N2.3 million in my account with the bank on behalf of the company.
“I cannot access the money, and I have already written several mails to Sterling Bank to declare that I was no longer interested in whatever Afolabi wanted to use that money for. I honestly don’t want to recount the awful things the company had me done during my stay there,” he added.
