Court restrains top GPRTU officials from office

Trader charged with possessing fake dollars

KMA's writ adjourned to August 11

Accra (Greater Accra) 28 July '99

An Accra High Court on Monday granted an interlocutory injunction restraining two top officials of the Greater Accra regional branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union from holding office until the determination of a case involving the embezzlement of 127 million cedis against them. .

The officials are Alhaji E.A. Tetteh, Greater Accra regional chairman and Mr Samuel Agyei Mensah, industrial relations officer.

The court preside over by Mrs Sayerr Williams also restrained the union from holding regional elections, pending the outcome of the case against the two officials.

The order by the court followed an application filed by two members of the union, Mr Charles Kabutey and Mr J.K. Mensah.

In 1996, Alhaji Tetteh and Agyei Mensah were implicated in the embezzlement of 127 million cedis being proceeds from daily income tax on commercial vehicles, collected on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service by the Greater Accra regional branch of the GPRTU, between 1993 and 1995.

The two officials have been on police enquiry bail since then while the docket on the case was forwarded to the attorney generals department for advice.

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Accra (Greater Accra), 28^th July 99 –

Aduna Mba Issah, a trader, who collected 3,500 dollars from a businessman under the pretext of purchasing chemicals to transform white papers into dollars on Tuesday, appeared before a circuit tribunal in Accra.

Issah, 41, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, defrauding by false pretences and possessing papers intended to resemble dollars.

Issah was granted 15 million cedis bail with one surety to be justified and will re-appear on August 17.

Two persons - Shaka, a Sierra Leonean, and Felix Kwabena Tetteh - jointly charged with Issa are on the run.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Elizabeth Allando told the tribunal, chaired by Mr Charles Louis Quist, that sometime in July, this year, Issah introduced Shaka to Mr Andrew L. Chezik, a businessman, as the son of a political activist who was killed in Sierra Leone.

DSP Allando said Shaka told Mr Chezik that his father sent a box, which contained jewellery to Ghana before his death, and that he needed money to clear the box at the Takoradi port.

According to the prosecutor, Mr Chezik gave him 300 dollars and when Shaka cleared the box, he informed him that apart from the jewellery, it also contained US dollars mixed with chemicals.

Shaka allegedly told the complainant that he needed another chemical to wash them into genuine dollars.

The prosecutor said Shaka washed three of the notes into 100-dollar notes in the presence of Issah and, as a result, Mr Chezik became convinced and gave Issah 3,500 dollars to purchase the chemicals.

She said Issah demanded an additional 66,300 dollars to buy more chemicals but Mr Chezik, who became suspicious, refused and reported them to the police.

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Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 28 July ’99

A Kumasi High Court on Tuesday set Wednesday August 11 for the hearing of a writ, filed by 46 assemblymen of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), against the Kumasi Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director and others to restrain them from holding a meeting of the assembly.

Mr Ishmael Butler, Mr Ibrahim Antwi, Nana Kofi Senya and Nana Nsiah Awuah, assemblymen for Kaase, Agric and New Suame, electoral areas, in that order, filed the writ on behalf of 46 assemblymen.

The writ is also to restrain the Presiding member, Nana Osei Owusu Banahene and the Electoral Commission from conducting any business in the assembly.

Mr Anthony Yeboah, a lawyer who held brief for Mr Joseph Osei-Wusu, Counsel for the plaintiffs, told the Court presided over by Mr A. K. Abada that Mr Osei-Wusu was not well.

He said the plaintiffs were served with some documents on Tuesday morning and they needed time to study them.

Mr Osei Poku, Counsel for the defendants, did not oppose the application for adjournment.

The court, therefore, adjourned to August 11 to enable the parties to prepare well for the hearing.

Mr Zed Kofi Grant-Essilfie, Kumasi Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director was in court.

Last Friday, July 23, the plaintiffs filed an interim injunction to restrain the defendants from holding a meeting to vote on a resolution of a vote of no confidence in the Metropolitan Chief Executive, Nana Akwasi Agyeman.

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