2 in court over 64 NIA stolen laptops

 

Two persons, Frank Nketiah, a trader, and Victor Maduka, businessman, have been charged with dishonestly receiving stolen items – Laptops- belonging to the National Identification Authority (NIA) for the registration of Ghanaians.

Frank, first accused (A1), who resides at Tetegu, bought the stolen laptops from an employee of the NIA, and further sold it to Victor, A2, who is a resident of Lapaz and operates his business at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

According to the facts read before the Circuit Court presided over by Emmanuel Essandoh yesterday, Emmanuel Selby is the Head of Projects at the Information Management System Department under the NIA, filed the complainant of the missing laptops to the police.

That, in October 2019, the government of Ghana procured over 5,000 HP Probook laptop computers from Denmark for the National Identification Authority to use in issuing Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) identity cards to Ghanaians.

However, it was realised in February 2020 that 64 of the laptops had been stolen from the NIA premises.

Investigations into the case pointed to one of the employees working under the complainant, Selby, to have allegedly stolen the laptops and disposed 15 of them at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, but could not lead the police to the dishonest receivers.

Meanwhile, on June 14, 2020, seven of the allegedly stolen laptops were traced to a shop at Burma Camp in Accra, and when the serial numbers were scanned, it was discovered that they were among the laptops procured for the NIA.

The brief facts further indicated that in March 2020, Frank received and bargained the price of 12 HP Probook laptops from two others, who are now at large, and kept them.

Frank later called Victor, who purportedly purchased each laptop at an amount GH¢1,500.

Per the brief facts, during the lockdown, some Nigerian businessmen at circle had their shops locked up, which also affected Victor’s shop.

As a result, Victor then gave the laptops to a friend to sell for him, where the supervisor of the shop at Burma Camp bought the retrieved ones and was issued with a receipt.

A1and A2 admitted the offences in their respective caution statements to the police, and after investigations, they were accordingly charged and put before court.

The accused persons all pleaded not guilty to the crime, but were remanded into police custody to reappear before the court June 23, after their lawyer failed to secure bail for them.

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