A self-styled businessman, Samuel Aboagye, has allegedly defrauded a business woman at the Dome Market, Deborah Bortsie, of GHC147,328.00 under the pretence that he has been contracted by government to supply rice to the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
Deborah was said to have supplied Samuel with 1,151 bags of rice at a unit cost of GHC128.00 in March 2020, but the latter has since failed to pay back the money.
Samuel has, therefore, appeared before an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Ellen Ofei-Ayeh, on seven different counts, including defrauding by false pretence and issuance of false cheques.
The court was told during sitting on Tuesday, this week, by the prosecuting officer, Chief Inspector Isaac Anquandah, that Deborah is the complainant in the case and resident of Kaneshie, while the accused, Samuel, is a businessman and resides at Tantra Hill all in the Greater Accra region.
According to the prosecutor, the accused person, on March 3rd, 4th, 6th and 10th, 2020 respectively approached the complainant at her warehouse at Dome market, where she had packed Thailand rice with the brand name DTS for sale.
He said the accused person made a false representation to the complainant that he has been contracted to supply the Government of Ghana with rice and other commodities under the School Feeding Programme.
According to C/Insp Anquandah, the accused further misrepresented to the complainant that supplying commodities to the Programme allows the government to make timeous payment to suppliers and upon this misrepresentation, Deborah was convinced and supplied Samuel with the said bags of rice.
According to the Prosecuting officer, Samuel after taking delivery of the rice promised to pay in a week’s time and subsequently issued three separate Consolidated Bank Ghana Ltd (CBG) cheques – cheque No. 000007 with a face value of GHC38,400.00 – Cheque No. 000008 with face value of GHC10,0000.00 and cheque No. 0000012 with face value of GHC76,800.00 – to the complainant for clearance.
He narrated to the court that the accused person dated and endorsed only cheque No. 000008 with the face value of GHC10,000.00 which was to mature on March 13, 2020.
“The remaining two undated cheques were issued to the complainant on 6th March, 2020. The two cheques were also to mature on March 13, 2020.
“Upon maturation of the cheques, the complainant made efforts to contact the accused about the presentation of the cheques, but his line failed to go through,” he added.
“The Prosecutor indicated that after a month of issuing the cheques, the accused called the complainant to stop her from presenting the cheques including the undated for clearance.”
He stated that Deborah after several failed attempts to collect the money from the accused reported the case to the police.
The court was told that investigation conducted by the police at the CBG Ltd revealed that the accused had no funds in his account as at March13, 2020.
“It was again revealed that the accused person did not supply the rice to the School Feeding Programme, as he made the complainant to believe and had no contract with School Feeding Programme.
“He instead sold it out to his customers including one Grace Owusu Agyiri a.k.a. Obaa Yaa who is at large. It was further disclosed that on July 14, 2020 the accused gave an ECOBANK account belonging to his wife to suspect Grace Owusu Agyiri instead of the CBG account known to the complainant and an amount of GHC15,000.00 was transferred into the account by Grace Owusu Agyiri.”
The Prosecutor further stated that the accused after his arrest, admitted during interrogation for having received a total sum of GHC19,950.00 from Obaa Yaa as part payment of the rice he sold to her, but failed to hand over same to the complainant.
C/Inp Acpnquandah added that at the Police Station, Isaac refunded GHC4,000.00 out of the GHC19,950.00 which has been kept as exhibit.
The accused plea was not taken and has been admitted to bail at the sum of GHC147, 328.00 with two gainfully employed sureties, one to be justified by landed property valued at the amount involved.
The sureties are to deposit photocopies of their passport or Ghana Card with the court registry.
Case has been adjourned to June 2, 2022.
