Credible reports available to Daily Guide indicate that the amount involved in the unprecedented scandal that has rocked the Sunyani West District Directorate of Education of the Ghana Education Service (GES) is about GH850,000 (8.5bn).

Source close to the Economic and Organized Crime Officer (EOCO) told Daily Guide that the anti graft investigative body has uncovered huge sums of money, more than the initial GH57,000 it earlier presented to the court about the alleged fraudulent deal involving three officials – to top education officers and a bank manager.

The suspects are Oppong Kwadwo Emmanuel, manager of the Abesim Agency of the Bomaa Area Rural Bank; Nana Osei Agyemang, the Sunyani West District director of Education and Obeng Addo, the IPPD coordinator at the Sunyani West District Education Office.

The said tax-payers’ monies are salaries of newly-recruited teachers in the district which were backdated for more than a year’s periods, and paid into a private account of the IPPD Coordinator at the Abesin-based rural bank, near Sunyani.

The suspects, who are currently standing trial at the Sunyani District Magistrate Court ‘B’ presided over by Joseph Mensah, were arrested by the EOCO a couple of days ago upon an extensive investigations.

When they first appeared before the court on October 1, 2013, the court remanded them into police custody to reappear on October 9.

The Magistrate, Mr. Mensah on Wednesday, however, granted them a GH50,000 bail each with a surety to reappear before the same court on October 30,2013.

They are facing three counts of conspiracy to steal under section 23 (1) of the Criminal Offenses Act, 1960 (Act 29); stealing of public funds under section 124(1) of Act 29 and forgery of documents under section 158 of Act 29. However, all three accused persons have pleaded not guilty to the offenses.

The prosecutor of the case, William Botwe-Boafo told the court on Wednesday that the accused persons on April 2, 2013, forged about eight cheques, withdrawing over GH57, 000 from the Bomaa Area Rural Bank, Abesim Agency.

But EOCO’s latest allegedly stolen by the top officials far exceeds GH57, 000 having realize that the state has lost about GH850,000 in the alleged fraudulent deal carried out by the three persons.

The prosecutor said on May 5, 2013, the Economic and Organized Crime Office, which is the complainant in the case, had hints about a deal going on at the Education Office, which the accused persons were involved in.

EOCO therefore invited them and during investigations, it was revealed that the IPPD Coordinator and his District Director had recruited some teachers, backdated their salaries for more than a year’s period and conspired with the bank manager to have the said monies paid into the private accounts of the IPPD Coordinator.

The bank manager then forged the signatures of the beneficiary teachers and withdraws huge salaries amounting to have reached GH850, 000, which they shared among themselves.

According to EOCO, the case is still under investigation as they believe that more revelations could pop up.

Meanwhile, Daily Guide’s investigations have established that due to the alleged fraudulent acts of the accused persons, some of the beneficiary teachers had as much as GH31, 000 as their backdated salary based on the p[ay-slips presented to them even though their appointments took effect from September this year.

They could not, however, get access to all their salaries since the Controller and Accountable General’s Department deposited all the monies into the private accounts of the IPPD coordinator at the said bank.

The paper’s investigations also proved that the qualification state on the appointment letters of most of the recruited pupil teachers was contrary to what was stated on the certificates they had presented.

A section of the head teachers who spoke to Daily Guide said some of the recruits teachers submitted DBS and WASSCE certificates. However, on their appointment letters it was stated that they were first degree holders.

According to them, they informed their officials about it but since they know what they were up to, they did nothing to rectify the anomalies.

The head teachers explained that they later detected that the majority of the recruited teachers, whom their officials claimed were graduate teachers, could not handle simple subjects and topics they were asked to teach.

Daily Guide also gathered that because of the arbitrary recruitment of pupil teachers in the district, some of the schools are overstaffed as they have more teachers than they actually need.