Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - Five persons who allegedly siphoned monies fro= m the coffers of the Judicial Service on Wednesday appeared before an Accra=

Circuit Court charged with conspiracy to steal and stealing GH¢308,315.=

76. They are Eric Atsu Amegbe, Volta Regional Accountant, Samuel Kwasi Dzeble, Internal Auditor, Prosper Adeti, Director of Finance, Issah Abdul= ai, Deputy Director of Finance and Victor Kofikumah Tenu, former Volta Region= al Registrar now on pension. They pleaded not guilty to the charges and have been admitted to bai= l. While Amegbe, Dzeble, Adeti and Abdulai were admitted to GH¢500,00= 0 bail each with three sureties, Tenu was admitted to GH¢100,000 bail wit= h three sureties. They would re-appear on March 4. Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police P.K. Frimpong said the Judicial Service maintained two accounts, the subvention and deposit. He explained that the subvention account took care of all subvention= s, staff allowances, and other administrative allowances while the deposit account held monies in trust for litigants.

Prosecution said Amegbe, Dzeble and Tenu were signatories of the subventions account and with the deposit account, Amegbe and Tenu were th= e signatories and withdrawals could only be undertaken based on court order= s. DSP Frimpong said sometime ago, Amegbe and Abdulai hatched a plan to=

steal from the state and therefore designed a plan to embark on their agenda. They decided to insert ghost names into allowance payment vouchers f= or the Volta Region and inflated the allowances and other expenses for the Region. Amegbe withdrew the excess monies and shared the money among themselves. Prosecution said Amegbe used the first, middle, and surnames of existing staff interchangeably to represent different staff members in th= e Region.

He also divided the Region's payment zones into three that is Centr= al, South and North and forged the identity numbers for non-existing staff. In addition, allowances due to these non-existing staff were triple= d in some cases.

Prosecution said Dzeble whose duty it was to pre-audit the vouchers=

for the Region rather used his stamp and signatures to validate the vouch= ers containing the ghost names. Abdulai, who was at the Head Office on receiving the vouchers, pass= ed them as genuine and processed payment into the Region's Subvention accoun= t. The excess monies paid into the account were withdrawn and shared proportionally among themselves.

When Adeti was appointed he was roped in the deal and received his share, Tenu religiously protected the deal without any detection over the=

years. However, the prosecution said in October 2008, the Judicial Secreta= ry sent a special audit inspection team to the Volta Region after auditing discovered that from January 1, 2006 to October 31, 2008 the accused pers= ons had allegedly stolen GH¢296,815.76 from the subvention account and additional GH¢11,500 from the deposit account. He said Amegbe, Dzeble and Tenu had so far refunded GH¢32,117.54,=

Amegbe and Dzeble confessed to the crime while Tenu claimed he only borro= wed monies from Amegbe.