Court convicts Ghanaian and Nigerian for providing false information at Ghana Card registration

 

The Ghanaian Standard - The Adjabeng District Court in Accra has sentenced Olu Olarusi Toyin Tracy, a.k.a. Tracy Mensah, and one Yvette Mensah, to a fine of 300 Penalty Units (GHS 3,600) each, for providing false information to the National Identification Authority (NIA)

In default of payment, they will serve six months in prison.

The suspects were charged with the offences of conspiracy to commit crime namely providing false information to officials of NIA, contrary to Section 23(1) of Act 29/60 and Section 17(c) of the National Identification Authority Act 707 (Act 2000) and Providing False Information to NIA Officials.

They both pleaded guilty to all charges preferred against them and were subsequently convicted on their own plea.

Meanwhile, Toyin Tracy, a Nigerian, is to be repatriated to her country of origin after serving her sentence by the orders of the Court.

On November 19, 2021, Toyin Tracy went to the Head Office of the NIA to acquire a Ghana Citizen Card. She was accompanied by Yvette Mensah.

Tracy had in her possession a Ghanaian Birth Certificate, one of the documents required for acquiring a Ghana Card.

The two were directed by the NIA registration Official to the CID (NIA) Office for the usual vetting, interrogation and authentication of documents that most suspected applicants went through before being allowed to continue with the registration process to acquire the Ghana Card if they were cleared by the Unit. In the course of Police investigations, it was detected that the birth certificate possessed by Tracy had the name “Tracy Mensah” with Yvette Mensah as the mother and one Alhassan Fusieni as the father, all Ghanaians.

The birth certificate was issued at the Birth and Death Registry on October 22, 2021, at Bubuashie Office, Accra and had its registration number as 020107-3879-2021 with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital as the place of birth.

Further investigations disclosed that, Yvette Mensah was not the biological mother of Tracy and that, the two were never related in any way.

Investigations also revealed that the name Tracy Mensah was adopted by Olarusi Toyin with the consent of Yvette Mensah to enable her to have a Ghanaian lineage.

Again, it was revealed that Tracy’s biological parents were Nigerians and she was born in Nigeria.

Yvette Mensah in the course of interrogations confirmed to Police that, she was contacted by Tracy to assist her to acquire a Ghana Card by playing a mother role on her birth certificate.

She (Toyin) gave her home town as Agbozume in the Volta Region.

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3 SHS students involved in alleged killing of bolt driver remanded

 

The three Senior High School (SHS) students, who were arrested over the burning to death of a Bolt driver at Sekondi, have been charged and remanded into Police custody by a Sekondi District Court.

They are Patrick Baidoo, 18, Joseph Lord Nii Adjei Oninku, 17 and Adolf Eshun, 18 years.

The first accused person, Adolf Eshun, was charged with abetment of crime to wit robbery.

The other two, Patrick Baidoo and Joseph Lord Nii Adjei Oninku, were slapped with four charges of conspiracy to commit crime, attempted robbery, causing unlawful damage and murder as well as attempt to commit crime, to wit, robbery.

They would re-appear in court on Tuesday, January 14, 2022.

Police Inspector Jennifer Acheampong, the prosecutor, told the court presided over by Mrs Catherine Obiri Addo that on Wednesday, December 22, Eshun ordered a Bolt for Baidoo and Oninku.

She said it later emerged that the two burnt the driver, who was identified as AB1 Okyere Boateng, a Naval Officer.

She said they poured petrol on the deceased and set him ablaze when he refused to hand over the car key to them.

Inspector Acheampong said the driver sustained burns on his face and several parts of his body and later died at the 37 Military Hospital.

She said the suspects confessed to committing the crime after their arrest.

Ghana to fine airlines $3 500 for each unvaccinated passenger.

• Airlines will have to pay $3 500 for each unvaccinated passenger arriving at Kotoka International Airport.
• While locals who fly in without meeting the requirement will be allowed to enter the country and undergo a 14-day quarantine, foreigners may be refused entry.
• According Reuters, slightly more than five percent of the country’s population has so far been vaccinated.

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Ghana has said it will fine airlines $3,500 for each passenger who arrives in the capital’s international airport without being fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Under new measures taking effect on Wednesday, air carriers will also be penalized the same amount for travellers who did not fill out a health declaration form before boarding their flight to Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the state-owned Ghana Airport Company said.

While Ghanaians who fly in without meeting the requirement will be allowed to enter the country and undergo a 14-day quarantine, foreigners may be refused entry, the airport authority said.

The measures are just the latest taken by Ghana, which has introduced some of the strictest coronavirus-related restrictions in West Africa.

The new penalties come a day after the country began requiring all passengers over the age of 18 to provide evidence of full vaccination against Covid-19, saying that about 60 percent of the total new cases recorded in the country had come from the airport during a recent two-week period.

“The current increase in cases together with the detection of the Omicron variant among international arrivals and the expected increase during the festive season calls for urgent actions to prevent a major surge in COVID-19 cases in Ghana,” the Ghana Health Service said last week in announcing its decision.

Ghana, with about 31 million people, has one of the best Covid-19 testing programmes in the region. It has had 132,000 confirmed cases and 1,243 deaths since the pandemic began.

According to data compiled by the Reuters news agency, slightly more than five percent of the country’s population has so far been vaccinated.

Authorities this month launched an enormous vaccination drive ahead of the enforcement from January 22 of a vaccine mandate for targeted groups, including government employees, health workers and students. The government plans to recruit more health workers to be able to double daily inoculation from 140,000.