The cover on the clandestine activities of some police personnel at the Ministries Police Station (Accra South Division) where licenses for guns are renewed, has been blown up.
Two of the police personnel have consequently been hauled before the Director General of the Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for questioning.
The officers, all Chief Inspectors, names withheld, were said to have been defrauding the state to the tune of several millions cedis through issuing fake receipts to unsuspecting members of the public who went there to renew licenses for their firearms.
A source at the Police Headquarters told Daily Guide in confidence that the modus operandi of some of the police personnel at the firearm licensing office included issuing of fake receipts to unsuspecting customers to cover renewal of license.
Besides, those who paid arrears covering a previous year were not issued with receipts and only had the amount hand-written at the back of the original receipt and rubber-stamped.
According to our source, receipts covering such payments were issued from the offices of the Controller and Accountant General Department for easy auditing and monitoring.
Unfortunately, the Controller and Accountant General Department does not have any mechanism to monitor such fake receipts, so the monies went into individual pockets.
The source said the two police personnel who were notoriously guilty of this economic crime, were uncovered by a retired senior police officer (name withheld) who had gone to the Police Division of the Ministry on January 16th 2007 to renew license for a shotgun and pay arrears for a colleague.
The retired Police Officer discovered that the two police personnel issued the original receipt to cover the sum of ¢500,000 for 2007 while another ¢500,000 was paid for 2006 as arrears.
Surprisingly, the two conspirators only hand wrote the amount of ¢500,000 at the back of the original receipt and rubber stamped it to authenticate their fishy deal.
The source said the retired senior police officer became suspicious and demanded the original receipt to cover payment for the arrears.
They were said to have quickly mobilised themselves and promised to provide a receipt later, with the pretence that they were short of receipt booklets.
The two Detective Inspectors later sent the fake receipt number 13851, dated January 16th 2007 to the retired Senior Police officer.
The source said the Retired Senior Police Officer then wrote a letter to the Director General of CID, copied to the Controller and Accountant General and Ministry for the Interior to protest and inform them of the activities of the police personnel.
A portion of the letter sighted by Daily Guide stated: “In the evening when I collected the receipt, I realised that the receipt looked ordinary without the logo of the Ghana Coat of Arms on it.
I believe that the Accountant General cannot permit such ordinary market receipt to be issued to cover state money.”
The letter therefore called upon the CID boss and the relevant authorities to take measures to investigate the activities of such personnel so that the appropriate sanctions were instituted to deter such economic saboteurs from wrecking the economy.
When Daily Guide contacted Mr. Francis Aboagye Nyarko, officer in charge of the National Firearms Bureau of the Police CID Headquarters, he declined comment.
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