BEKWAI COURT GRANTS BAIL TO 4 (PAGE 34)

Story: Kwame Asare Boadu, Bekwai

THE Bekwai Circuit Court has granted bail to four persons who have been accused of fraudulently using the payslips of teachers on study leave to secure loans from a micro-finance company.
The four, whose arrest was reported in the Daily Graphic of Tuesday, April 17, 2008, pleaded not guilty to the charge of defrauding by false pretences and will appear again at a later date.
They are James Leeford Yevutse, 30, a teacher at the Agona Nyakrom D/A Junior High School; Charles Kojo Fosu, 29, a teacher at the Kasoa D/A Primary School; Kwame Nkrumah, 27, a farmer at Agona Duakwa, and Kwabena Kanin, 35, a ‘space-to-space’ operator at Kasoa.
It was the third time the accused persons appeared before the court, presided over by Mr Agyei Frimpong, having been remanded on two previous occasions.
According to the police, the four had, through fraudulent means, managed to access various loans from the company, Noble Character Enterprise, agents of City Investments Company of Accra, at its offices in the Central Region.
The latest attempt, totalling GH¢565, out of which GH¢65 was secured at the Manso Nkwanta office of Noble Character Enterprise, was on April 10, 2008.
They were, however, arrested before they could secure another facility of GH¢500.
According to the police, the suspects were arrested at a police barrier at Antoakrom in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region.
The police said the modus operandi of the suspects was to secure the payslips of teachers who were on study leave, make fake voter identity cards bearing the names of the teachers but with the pictures of the accused persons and used them to access loans from the company.
On the day on which they were arrested, the accused persons had hired a taxi from the Central Region and travelled to Manso Nkwanta to execute the deal.
An assistant manager at the Manso Nkwanta office of the company who had written the cheques for the accused persons later realised their applications were fake and quickly informed the Manso Nkwanta Police.
At that point, the accused persons had left in the taxi but the Manso Nkwanta Police relayed a message to their counterparts at Antoakrom, who arrested the four. But one other accomplice escaped.