Five persons accused of stealing cash belonging to customers of a savings enterprise have been granted GHS20,000 bail each with one surety each by the Enchi District Magistrate Court.
Joseph Anyitei Nai, 49 a businessman; Moses Abiaw, 59; Seth Atobrah, 68 and John Kwesi Asemiah, 68, are all farmers and Paulina Asare, 66, a retired educationist have been charged for conspiracy to commit crime and stealing
They pleaded not guilty and would reappear before the court on Monday June 24.
The facts of the case as presented by Detective Chief Inspector Joseph Kwadwo Agyare are that the complainants were depositors of Aowin Susu Enterprise and lived at Yakase in the Aowin Municipality.
He said Nai, Abiaw, Atobrah, Asemiah and Asare were the management members of the Susu Enterprise.
The other accused persons Evans Antwi, 33, a teacher, Naomi Baidoo, 48, a farmer, Juliana Mensah, community health nurse, 35, Vincentia Asante, 21, a student and Philip Mahama, 27, a tailor were mobile bankers to the firm.
Inspector
Agyare said the complainants made a series of deposits into their respective bank accounts after joining the Susu Enterprise.
On October 30, 2021, while Nai was reviewing the annual financial report of the firm, he detected misappropriation of funds and engaged the service of external auditors from the Wassa Amenfi East Municipality to audit the company.
Prosecution said report from the auditors indicated that, the Susu Enterprise made a loss of GHS97,250 due to the negligence and overspending by the management, poor recording of depositors’ monies, use of correction fluids and cancelations of amount of monies in their record books by its mobile money bankers.
The debt, however, reduced from GHS97,250 to GHS67,250 after an amount of GHS30,000 used by the firm’s management during their operations were deducted.
Inspector Agyare said the complainants upon hearing that the company was collapsing, rushed to the office to withdraw their monies but their accounts were empty.
The complainants later proceeded to
the Enchi police station to lodge a complaint against Nai, but he quickly went there and convinced the complainants not to take such an action and assured them that management was rectifying the challenges.
Prosecution said as soon as the complainants returned to their respective homes and workplaces, Nai went to the Police station to report a case against Abiaw, Atobrah, Asemiah and Asare.
They were all arrested, and Nai furnished the Police with the audited report, but upon scrutiny, the officers observed that the misappropriation was created by both the management members and the mobile money bankers.
He told the court that Nai, Antwi, Baidoo, Mensah and Asante were arrested and cautioned, after which the Police officially requested for the bank statement of the Susu Enterprise from the Ghana Commercial Bank, branch in Enchi.
Inspector Agyare said the statement indicated that, aside from the withdrawals made by the Aowin Susu Enterprise, there were several occasions monies were withdrawn with no person
or name attached to it.
He said Mensah, Asante and Mahama were currently on the run and efforts are being made to arrest them.
Source: Ghana News Agency