Labourer convicted for stealing

" I presumed 'African Observer ' was true", witness tells court

Asamankese (Eastern Region), 22^nd October 99

A casual labourer of the Ghana Oil Palm Development Company (GOPDC), Kwasi Takyi, has been sent to prison for seven days and fined 500,000 cedis by the Asamankese Circuit Court for stealing palm fruits from the company's plantation at Kwae.

If Takyi, who pleaded guilty, fails to pay the fine, he will serve another 18 months in prison.

Chief Inspector John Boateng, prosecuting, told the court, presided over by Mr. S.S. Appiah, that GOPDC Security Guards on patrol duties arrested Takyi at about 2.30 am on October eight when he and three others were harvesting palm fruits at the company's plantation. The three others escaped.

The prosecutor said the security men then combed the area and retrieved 13 other bunches of the fruits the four had harvested valued at 50,000 cedis.

Takyi told the police that he and his accomplices had kept a quantity of the palm fruits from the plantation in a house at Kwae but when the house was searched no bunches were found. Takyi then told the police that other thieves might have stolen them.

At the same court, Kwasi Agyei, a farmer, was also fined 500,000 cedis for stealing 28 bunches of palm fruits from the company's plantation on October one. He will go to jail for 18 months if he fails to pay the fine.

Agyei who had at an earlier sitting pleaded not guilty and was remanded in prison custody for two weeks, changed his plea to guilty.

Mr. Appiah ordered 300,000 cedis of the fines, if paid, should be given to GOPDC as compensation and warned that heavier sentences will imposed on suspects found to be stealing the GOPDC farms.

GRi