Task force accused of stealing former dep. Minister's gold

A former deputy Local Government Minister is accusing members of a government task force of theft of gold bars from his car when they tried to forcibly seize his V8 land cruiser in Accra on Tuesday.

Emmanuel Agyekum told Joy News he has filed a formal complaint with the Kwabenya police about the incident and the theft of the gold.

Narrating what happened, wife of the former deputy Minister, Priscilla Agyekum, told Joy News her husband who exports gold came back from a business journey on Monday evening.

“On Tuesday morning the guys came to the house, the items were in the car to be sent to the office to be shipped to Dubai. But on Tuesday evening we realised the items were not in the car,” she said.

According to her, a police officer and four people who said they have been sent by the Flagstaff House to take the V8 vehicle because it belonged to the state accosted them.

"We asked them for their warrant but they did not have any. When we asked for their identification cards only one guy had his to show," she said.

According to her, although they showed them the paperwork to the V8 vehicle, the men said they believed there are Toyota Camry and a Prado in the house, "but we told them we don't have them and that we have returned all vehicles given to us by the state."

The task force and the deputy Minister in a dispute at the police station

She said they allowed the men access to the V8 after they requested to check the Chassis number. They later realised that some valuables were "stolen" from the car after the men were done.

“My husband was on the phone trying to get people to help with the situation and I was arguing with them demanding their warrant so I was asked to go inside the house. We both didn’t realise that we had it [gold bars] in the car,” she said.

Mrs Agyekum said when they went back to the police station to check on the progress of the complaint against the men, the police commander called the head of the task force to inquire if he sent a man by name Ahinkora to the said house.

"The task force chairman said no and that they have warned that Ahinkora to stop going around seizing cars from people. The task force commander then told the commander to treat the case a criminal case because Ahinkora was not sent by the state," she said.

However, minutes later another phone call was placed by an unknown person to the police commander to not let the V8 move as its ownership is under contention.

Some men then moved to the police station to impound the car. Mrs Agyekum said although she showed them the documents to the vehicle, they insisted driving it to the presidency.

“We were uncomfortable handing them the car because the last time we left it to them we lost some valuables in the car,” she said adding, “the police station is a state environment so we thought we could keep it here and go to Flagstaff House with the documents.”

She said they are going to take legal action against whoever sent the task force demanding the taskforce stops harassing former appointees and do due diligence before acting.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim