Court grants former National Service head permission to travel home for Christmas
A Fast Track High Court (Tax and Financial) Division on Monday granted Alhaji Alhassan Mohammed Imoro former Executive Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS) permission to travel to his hometown during the Christmas festivities.
The court presided over by Mrs Justice Georgina Mensah- Datsa said Imoro has been excused from presenting himself at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) office from December 23 to January 2, 2015.
She later reviewed the bail condition of Imoro to the effect that Imoro goes to the BNI office once in a week on the day agreed by both parties instead of three times in a week as stated earlier per the bail conditions.
During Monday’s sitting, the state represented by Senior State Attorney, Comfort Tasiame prayed the court for a three weeks adjournment to allow the prosecution complete investigations.
Mr Denis Adjei Dwomoh, Defence Counsel, said they were not opposed to the three weeks’ adjournment and added that the period would be in the heat of the Christmas and prayed the court to grant permission to the accused person who would want to travel to his hometown during the period.
He also prayed the court to vary the reporting time of the accused person to the BNI from three times in a week so that as and when the prosecution needed the accused person he could be given two days’ notice to report.
The case was then adjourned to January 8, 2015.
Imoro who is accused of stealing GH₡86.9 million was granted bail in the sum of GH₡90 million with three sureties all to be justified with property worth one million Ghana cedis.
He was to surrender his passport to the BNI until further notice and report himself to the BNI four times in a week or any other days upon the request by the BNI.
Imoro has pleaded not guilty to the charge of stealing GH₡86.9 million belonging to the government of Ghana through the payment of ghost or non-existent service personnel.
On November 3, this year, Imoro was discharged at the Circuit Court and he was quickly re-arrested and arraigned before the Fast Track High Court.
The Circuit Court was expected to deliver its ruling in respect of Imoro’s bail application but that did not materialised.
Prosecution case was that the accused was responsible for the posting and placement, raising vouchers and payment of National Service persons in the country.
According to prosecution at the beginning of the year, he posted some service personnel and caused the transfers of vouchers across the country.
In July this year the BNI received some complains of malfeasance and began a nationwide investigations into the operations of the NSS with regards to the payment of monthly allowances to service persons.
According to prosecution, investigations so far revealed that for every month starting from September 2013 to July this year, an amount of GH₡7.9 million was paid to 22,612 non-existent or ‘ghost ‘ service persons.
Prosecution said the ghost names were generated at the NSS headquarters under the supervision of the former NSS boss.
According to prosecution, Imoro instructed that the names should be added to the Payment Vouchers (PVs).
The prosecutor said the PVs were distributed to the Regional Directors of the Scheme and on receipt, they also distributed to the District Directors under their jurisdiction.
Prosecution said Imoro signed cheques for payments which were deposited in the banks of the districts where service persons withdrew their allowances.
Imoro also issued instructions to the District Directors through their Regional Directors that after the allowances of the genuine service persons had been paid the money for the ghost names should be withdrawn and sent to him through the Regional Directors.
Prosecution said in all GH₡86.9 million was received by Imoro from the 10 Regional Directors.
Source: GNA