Twenty counts of money laundering and stealing prepaid credits worth more than GH2.1 million have been brought against three workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and seven other people.

The workers are Anthony D. K. Quaye, a technician at the ECG district office in Kasoa, Grace Gardiner, the chief supervising cashier at the ICT Department at the Head Office, and Ali Nansii Shaibu, a computer programmer.

The remaining defendants include Ibrahim Baba Adamu, a technician at the Ghana Electrometer Company, as well as Muntari Adamu, Gariba Awudu Misbaw, Kwasi Appiah Donkor, Eric Yaw Kyei, and Augustina Laniyan, all of whom were independent contractors and sold the general public ECG pre-paid power credits.

ECG, in 2003, entered into a partnership agreement with various companies including Electrometer to provide pre-paid power distribution to customers across the country.

Private dealers were tasked to engage in the sale of the credits as well. Prosecutors say the first accused person (Ali Nansii Shaibu) travelled to Hohoe in 2016 to resolve a pre-paid connectivity challenge for the 7th accused person (Gariba Awudu Misbaw).

The two agreed that the software will be manipulated to enable pre-paid credits to be sent to Gariba without the knowledge of the Hohoe District Office of the ECG. The 7th accused person will then delete the transaction and share the proceeds among themselves.

Credits worth ¢199,351.60 transferred and sold under this scheme

Mr. Shaibu equally entered into this deal with other accused persons resulting in the theft of ¢1,203,249.26 worth of credits. Another set of transactions with other accused persons resulted in various amounts being stolen. Prosecutors say investigations put the total value of stolen credits under this scheme at 2,143,270.15.

The accused persons are said to have admitted to the offence and refunded an amount of 282,600.00 cedis. They all however pleaded not guilty when the charges were read against them in court. The hearing of the case will resume on April 27, 2023.