Tema court jails man seven years for appropriating 200 bags of soya bean meal

The Tema Circuit Court B has sentenced Ronald Kwabena Quansah Hammond to seven years imprisonment with hard labour for dishonestly appropriating 200 bags of soya bean meal valued at Gh₵38,000.

Quansah was ordered to give 2,940 bags of soya beans to the complainant, Best Grain Company Limited, within sixty days.

The court presided over by Bertha Aniagyei, sentenced Quansah, after a full trial, to seven years imprisonment, on eight counts of stealing, which would run concurrently.

The prosecution, led by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mrs Stella Odame, said the complainant, William Edem Tetteh, is the proprietor of Bill Logistics Enterprise, Accra, a transporter stationed at Flour Mills Ghana Limited, Tema, to transport goods purchased by clients of Flour Mills Ghana to their various destinations.

ASP Odame told the court that Quansah lives in Saki, Tema, and works with Bill Logistics as its representative at Flour Mills Ghana Limited, Tema. 

The prosecution said the client informed Flour Mills, which in turn informed the representative of Bill Logistics to convey the goods to the client.

Tetteh came to Flour Mills Ghana’s office in Tema to meet with the owners.

She said during the interaction, Tetteh wanted to find out why business was slow and there had been no activity.

That was when he got to know that Quansah had gone to deceive Flour Mills Ghana and had dishonestly appropriated the soya bean Mill belonging to Best Grains Ghana and could not be traced as he had switched off his phone.

The prosecution told the court that somewhere in April 2021, Best Grains, a client of Flour Mills Ghana, through its Managing Director, Francis Owusu Afriyie, made a total order of 19,000 bags of soya bean mill, totalling Gh₵ 3,610,000.

Immediately after the order, Best Grains requested through the Kumasi Representative of Flour Mills Ghana for a total of 14,280 bags to be loaded, which was forwarded to the Bill Logistics representative at Flour Mills Ghana Limited Kumasi, leaving a balance of 4,720 bags of Soya beans at Flour Mills Ghana.

The prosecution said the Managing Director of Best Grains indicated to officials of Flour Mill Ghana that his warehouse was full, so he would arrange to take delivery of the outstanding 4,720 bags of Soya beans from Flour Mill Ghana amounting to Gh₵896,800.00 later.

Quansah, armed with the information, and unknown to the Managing Director of Best Brain Ghana, went to Flour Mills Ghana’s Tema office and misrepresented to them that the Managing Director of Best Gains had authorized him to load the remaining 4,720 bags of Soya beans and deliver the same to the company at Kumasi.

ASP Odame said with this misrepresentation, the Quansah succeeded and dishonestly appropriated 4,540 bags of Soya beans belonging to Best Grains, amounting to Gh₵672,600 leaving 180 bags with Flour Mills Ghana.

Investigations revealed that between April 16 and May 8, 2021, Quansah dishonestly appropriated many bags of Soya beans.

The investigation showed that he sold the goods to third parties at a reasonable price of Gh₵195.00 per bag and pocketed the proceeds.

However, 600 bags out of the last consignment of 800 bags of soya beans from Flour Mills, which was sold to one Christiana Atia Lariba by Quansah, were retrieved from the proceeds of the remaining 200 bags while Gh₵30,000 deposited in Quansah’s Stanbic Bank account was frozen.

Quansah was later arrested, and in his caution statement confessed to receiving the goods from Flour Mills Ghana upon his request to deliver them to Best Grain without their consent.

The prosecution said Quansah claimed during investigations that proceeds from the illegal acts had been invested in a business in Nigeria and pleaded with the police to grant him time to redeem the investment and pay the money back to the Managing Director of Best Grains.