Agona Swedru -- A Pastor who allegedly duped two young men of ?24.5 million under the guise of assisting them to travel to a conference in California, USA, is in the grips of the law. When Pastor Edwin Okyere, alias Yaw Asane, 36, appeared before the Swedru Circuit Court on two counts of defrauding by false pretences, he pleaded not guilty.

Even though he admitted taking the amount from Issa Adam, also known as David Eyiah, and Panford Solomon, he said he used the amount to procure their passports, visas, registration for the said conference and their hotel reservations in the US.

The pastor added that out of the eight applicants, only the two complainants failed their visa interview at the US Embassy in Accra, hence their inability to attend the conference in California.

The court, presided over by Mr P. K. Richardson, granted him a ?20 million bail with a surety until December 23. Chief Inspector Lydia Vondee told the court that Issa and Solomon, a barber and plumber respectively, are resident at Agona Swedru while Okyere is a pastor in charge of the Swedru branch of the Word Anointing Christian Chapel International.

She said that in February this year, the pastor told his congregation about a conference that was to take place in the United States and added that any interested member should contact him for assistance.

The prosecutor said one Owusu Ansah, a member of the church, went home and informed the complainants who are his friends and they expressed interest in the trip. So Owusu Ansah took them to the pastor who confirmed the news about the conference slated for California between July 29 and August 1, 2003.

The accused charged an amount of $2,500(the equivalent of ?24 million) per head. And Issa paid ?12.8 million while Solomon made a part payment of ?11.7 million to enable Okyere to process the necessary documents for them, Chief Inspector Vondee said, adding that he first told them that since they had not travelled outside Ghana before, he would buy them South African visas and tickets which he would give to a passport and visa agent to stamp in South Africa to indicate that they had travelled before.”

The prosecutor also quoted the pastor as having told Issa and Solomon that he would process their documents and book a hotel for them in the US.

On June 17, 2003, Okyere invited the pair to attend an interview at the US Embassy in Accra to enable them secure their visas. But during the interview, nothing showed in their passport that they had travelled anywhere outside the country, let alone South Africa, even though they had told the interviewers that they had travelled to South Africa before. As a result, they were not granted the visas.

Thus, feeling duped, Issa and Solomon confronted Okyere with a demand for him to refund their money to them since the result of the interview did not favour them. When the refund of their money was not forthcoming, they, on their return to Swedru, lodged a complaint with the police who arrested Okyere and charged him with the offence.

In a related development, the court fined Pastor Okyere a total of ?800,000 for using an unregistered car, driving without a licence, driving an uninsured car and having no road worthiness certificate.

Passing judgement, Judge Richardson said Pastor Okyere would serve three months in jail if he defaulted. The court also banned Okyere from driving for 12 months and seized his newly-acquired driving licence “even though he had taken steps to correct his errors”.