The Financial and Tax court of the Accra High Court has exonerated some five staff of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department who were accused of conspiring with non-staff to dupe  the state of GHC1 million.

The court that was presided over by Justice Afua Serwaa Asare discharged the accused persons after they pleaded guilty to Section 35 of the Courts Act 459 as amended by Act 620 (2002).

The five accused persons were reported to have created ghost names on government’s payroll through which they duped government of hundreds of thousands of Ghana Cedis.

The accused are Godwin Komla Amegbe, Chief Treasury Officer at the Pensions Computation Unit, Controller and Controller General; Sonny Adinyira, Treasury Officer at the Controller and Accountant General’s Department attached to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), and Richard Osei Asamoah, Head of Data Entry Technical Team of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department attached to the Pensions Computation Unit of the Ghana Police Service.

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The rest are Daniel Adu Twum who works at the Internal Auditor at the Pensions Unit of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department and Kwasi Alomenu, External Auditor attached to the pensions unit of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department.

Investigations revealed that the accused persons got people to open accounts with some specific banks to deposit monies into them which they would later withdraw.

Out of a total number of 16 accused persons, 13 have paid a total of Ȼ851,745.68 back to the state. Also, a  total of Ȼ300,007.70 worth of compensation have been paid, bringing the total amount paid to Ȼ1,151,753.38.