Barely two days after The Chronicle reported that a staff of absa had broken into customers’ accounts and allegedly stole several thousands of Ghana cedis, another Ghanaian, Gideon Mcwilliam, 28 and manager of Grace Has Found Us Company Limited, has also been accused of stealing over GH¢251,000.00 from his employer.
The accused allegedly stole the money between January and April, 2023.
He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge of stealing, but was denied bail by an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Samuel Bright Acquah.
Presenting the case before the court yesterday, the prosecuting officer, ASP Maxwell Oppong, said the Complainant in the case is one Richard Nyanator, an Accountant at the Grace Has Found Us.
According to the brief facts, the accused was a Manager at the company’s Tip Toe Lane branch, near Kwame Nkrumah Interchange.
The court was told that in the first week of April, the Complainant, while on his routine check at the company’s Tip Toe Lane branch, detected that huge sums of money have been embezzled.
When the Complainant queried the accused about it, he could not offer any reasonable response. The accused, however, urged the Complainant to give him some time to explain the shortfalls in the account books.
A week later, the Complainant engaged the services of internal auditors to audit the records, as well as the accounts of the accused. The audit report submitted indicated that the accused had embezzled the company’s funds to the tune of GH¢251,116.70.
The accused person was invited to the company’s Head office at Dansoman Asoredanho to explain to the management what brought about the shortfalls, but this time round too, he couldn’t offer any tangible reasons.
The accused was also given the opportunity to engage his own external auditors to confirm the aforementioned amount quoted by the internal auditors and the report received was the same figure.
The accused person finally met with management and promised to refund the money within a stipulated time but failed.
On April 25, the Complainant reported the case to the police and the accused was arrested for investigation. The accused admitted to the offence in his caution statement during interrogation.
The accused person during investigation offered his 2017 Hyundai Elantra unregistered saloon vehicle, which was valued at GH¢80,000.00 to defray some of the debt, with an outstanding balance of GH¢171,116.70.
After investigation, the accused was charged with the offence and arraigned before court.
