Crime & Punishment of Saturday, 9 November 2019

Source: mynewsgh.com

NPP chairman in hot waters over recruitment scam

The court has issued a bench warrant for Justice Sylvester Nii Okai's arrest The court has issued a bench warrant for Justice Sylvester Nii Okai's arrest

A Techiman Circuit court presided over by Justice Sylvester Nii Okai has issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman for Banda Constituency in the Bono East Region over his alleged involvement in a recruitment scam.

Charles Kofi Agyei is said to be on the run after he allegedly took monies from a fuel station manager to the tune of GH¢45,000 under the guise of getting him recruited into the Ghana National Fire Service.

According to the facts of the case as presented to the court by the Prosecutor, Emmanuel Kudalor, the NPP executive assured the Manager of the station identified as Mahama of protocol recruitment into the Ghana National Fire Service.

Using that as a basis, he succeeded in taking an amount of GH¢45,000 from Mahama ( the victim) claiming he was going to use that to influence some “big men’ in order get him to be recruited.

Several months after taking the stated amount, he is said to have failed to fulfil his part bargain and several attempts to get him refund the money proved futile until the owner of the fuel station realized through an audit that the amount in question had gone missing from the books.

Mr Adam who is the owner of the station confronted his Manager who confessed giving the amount to the NPP chairman, who also confirmed same in when reached by MyNewsGh.com but that all efforts to retrieve the money were unsuccessful.

An official complaint was lodged with the Banda Police and Mahama confessed in his caution statement he indeed gave the amount to the NPP Chairman to facilitate his recruitment.

The trial judge therefore granted the fuel station Manager bail and issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the NPP Chairman who is also alleged to have used the name of the General Secretary of the party, John Boadu in defrauding several persons in the area.

At the time of filing this report, Mahama was yet to meet the bail conditions and was detained at the Banda Police station awaiting the arrest of the runaway NPP Chairman.