Four persons arrested for allegedly stealing EC laptops remanded

Four persons arrested for the theft of Biometric Voter Registration kits of the Electoral Commission have been charged with four counts of stealing and dishonestly receiving.

They have been remanded into Police custody.

Three of the accused persons are officials of the Electoral Commission while one is a student. The three electoral commission staff members are Philip Lartey a labourer, Benyamin Fianyi a security officer and Joseph Blankson Adumadzie a database administrator all with the electoral commission.

The three staff of the commission have been charged with counts of stealing and conspiracy to steal while the student Clifford Yeboah has been charged with a count of dishonestly receiving.

The four have pleaded not guilty to the counts. According to the facts of the case, five Dell laptops, part of the Biometric Voter Registration kits which comprise a laptop, printer, scanner, battery and biometric device were reported stolen.

Upon further investigation, however, three HP laptops were retrieved from the fourth accused who is the student. One HP printer and three biometric verification device printer chargers were retrieved from the security officer.

Per Police investigation, the incident occurred when officials of the commission on March 9, 2024, entrusted some casual workers and security officers of the election’s management body to move some of their materials from their old head office at Ridge to one of its warehouses at Spintex.

The plot is said to have been initiated by the second and third accused persons to steal some of the HP printers.

The third accused person is said to have stolen one HP printer from one of the kit boxes and handed it over to A2.

A2 then stole three Biometric Verification Device Printer Chargers while A1 stole three HP laptop computers from the kit boxes to A4 to keep one and repair the remaining two.