The Supply officer at the Ho municipal directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Wisdom Atawiah has been arrested for allegedly stealing and selling teaching and learning materials meant for free use in public schools.
He was arrested together with Newton Fiagbor, shopkeeper at a popular stationary shop in the Ho, Azumah Bookshop, last Wednesday by the Ho Central Police for illegally trading government property.
The items, comprising 171 boxes of white chalk, 22 pieces of Longman dictionary; 140 pieces of crayons, 8 copies of Primary 3 English textbook, 536 technical drawing and sketchbooks, were found in the bookshop at discounted prices, Starr News has gathered.
DCOP Nana Asomah Hineh, Volta Regional Police Commander confirmed the arrests to the media but said the two suspects were on police enquiry bail, while they search for a third suspect, Dickson Yahezu said to be engaged in the business.
“Police intelligence led to the arrest of the storekeeper at Azumah Bookshop, Newton Fiagbor. We saw some quantities of books and other teaching materials from Ghana Education Service. Upon interrogation, he told us that the items were given to him by the Supply officer from GES called Wisdom Atawiah. So we quickly moved in to arrest him too,” the Police Chief explained.
He added that the GES officer, Atawiah confirmed he sold the consignments to the shopkeeper at the cost of Ghc1,500 to aid him pay his ward’s university fees.
“What motivated him to sell it, he told me [Commander] that he wanted to use it to pay his son’s school fees and that is unacceptable,” DCOP Asomah Hineh revealed and said further investigations is being conducted to ascertain the actual value of items that have been diverted by the suspect.
