A 58-year-old retired mine worker of Tebrebe Goldfields Ghana Limited, Francis Tweneboah, was on Tuesday granted bail in the sum of 35,000 Ghana cedis with a surety to be justified by a Tarkwa Circuit Court for defrauding by false pretense.

He pleaded not guilty and will re-appear on January 26.

Prosecuting Police Chief Inspector Oscar Amponsah told the court, presided by Mr. Justice Obeng Asante that the complainant who is also a retired mine worker of Tebrebe Goldfields Ghana Limited, lived at old Broadcasting near the Railway Station at Tarkwa.

He said sometime last year, Tweneboah approached the complainant and advised him to put his end of service money into good use by investing it.

Chief Inspector Amponsah said the accused asked the complainant to join his small scale mining group.

He said the complainant showed interest in the group and Tweneboah took him to Asankrangwa and showed him a portion of land that some people were mining and told him that his small scale mining group had invested in the venture.

Chief Inspector Amponsah said on June 30 last year, the complainant went to the Tarkwa branch of GT bank and withdrew 30,000 Ghana cedis and handed it over to the accused person for the business.

He said after the Tweneboah collected the money, he returned at a later date with a receipt with face value of 6,100 Ghana cedis.

A letter of agreement revealed that the site is located at Ankaase near Agona Amenfi and not Asankrangwa as he stated earlier on.

Chief Inspector Amponsah said the complainant questioned the accused about the change of site but he could not give any tangible reason.

He said the complainant reported the matter to the police and the accused was arrested.

Chief Inspector Amponsah said during interrogation, the accused confirmed that he collected the money from the complainant and pleaded with the police to give him up to the end of November last year to refund the money to the complainant but he failed.