Legon sends fresh students home

Some fresh students of the University of Ghana, Legon, who are said to have been conned into paying between 18 million cedis and 20 million cedis for admission letters for registration for this academic year have gone home.

Unknown to the disappointed students, the admission letters they were issued with were fake, and a suspect, Awuah Amponsah, believed to be behind the issuance of the fake letters, together with some of his assigns, has been arrested and is on court bail.

So far, nearly 100 students of the Volta Hall have been sent home and the university authorities are currently working on students at the Sarbah Hall. They will move to other halls one after the other.

The Director of Academic Affairs of the university, Enoch A. Amartey, who confirmed this, said although the students managed to register at the various halls of residence and departments, their attempt to do so at the Academic Affairs Directorate failed, following the installation of a system to check the authenticity of signatures on admission letters.

On the modus operandi of the gang, he said its members usually went from church to church and other places posing as educational consultants, promising to facilitate the admission of prospective students to the University for a fee.

He said the members of the gang would then buy application forms of the university and after the prospective students had filled the forms, the members of the gang provided addresses as those of the students.

Mr. Amartey said when the prospective students were offered admission, the leaders went to the members of the gang, who then called the students to go and pay foe their admission letters.

He said in cases where the students did not get admission, the gang usually scanned the signatures of the signing authority for admission on a printed letter head of the university.

According to him, since the Academic Affairs Directorate was security proof, it was able to detect any forged or scanned signatures, as well as any other anomalies.

Mr. Amartey appealed to members of the public to deal directly with the university, since its admission procedures were transparent.

He said anyone who met the cut off point for the various programmes would certainly be admitted, stressing, “We have not recruited any agency or individuals to admit students on our behalf”.

He said he was confident that the gang might be offering such dubious admissions to unsuspecting students at the other public universities.

He further stressed the determination of the university to clean its slate to restore its integrity and the confidence of the public in it.