Five staff members of the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) as well as eight non staff of the department who duped the state of almost GHC1 million have been discharged by the financial and Tax court presided over by Justice Afua Serwaa Asare Botwe after they all pleaded guilty under section 35 of the courts Act 459 as amended by Act 620 (2002).

The provision allows persons accused of stealing state funds to plead guilty, pay back the money in full and also pay reparation to the state.

The 13 of the 16 accused persons have paid a total 851,745.68 Ghana cedis back to the State and a total 300,007.70 reparation bringing the total moneys paid to 1,151,753.38.

The 5 CAGD staff have also been fired from their post.

Background

The five suspects and 11 other accomplices were accused of generating ghost names on government payrolls to siphon state funds into private accounts.

They were charged for conspiracy to commit crime, namely stealing contrary to section 124 of the Criminal Offence Act 29, 1960.

The five accused persons of the CAGD include; Godwin Komla Amegbe Chief Treasury Officer at the Pensions Computation Unit, Controller and Accountants 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.

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.

The account, according to investigations, was for pension benefits of supposed retirees and deceased persons.

Investigations revealed that various sums of monies were deposited into the bank accounts of purported retirees and deceased persons.

The monies which amount to 1 million Ghana cedis were later withdrawn by other members of the syndicate and shared amongst themselves.