5 in court over BECE leakage

Five persons, including the proprietor of Coniel International School at Kasoa in the Central Region and a staff of the IT Department of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), have been put before an Accra circuit court over the leakage of some papers of the recently held Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

The suspects, Daniel Nyarko Sono, a civil servant; Mireku Samuel alias Humphrey, a teacher; Benedict Quantson, IT personnel; Richmond Asiedu and Osae Brenu, IT personnel; were put in a court presided over by Afi Agbaney.

Asiedu, a proprietor, was caught allegedly going through some WAEC questions on his mobile telephone with his students.

The suspects were charged with six counts of leakage of examination papers but they had denied any wrongdoing and have been granted bail in the sum of GHc40,000 each with two sureties while the case has been adjourned to August 5, 2015.

Narrating events leading to the arrest of the accused persons, the prosecutor, DSP Aidan Dery, recalled that the country was hit by a mass leakage of the BECE papers, leading to a cancellation of those papers.

He said Sono is a staff of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department on secondment to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and also the proprietor of Coniel International School; Asiedu is the proprietor of Royal Kingdom International School while Mireku is the head teacher of Coniel.

According to him, Quantson and Osae Brenu are both IT staff of WAEC in Accra.

He said Sono presented nine students from his school to write this year’s BECE and therefore tasked Mireku, his head teacher, to procure the question papers for his candidates so that they could secure 100% since it was the first time the school was presenting candidates for the examination.

DSP Aidan Dery claimed that Mireku then contacted Quantson who sent the question papers, including English Language, Mathematics, Science and Religious and Moral Education via WhatsApp, a social media platform.

In addition, he said on June 17, 2015, before the students could start the examination, Mireku gathered his candidates and was brushing through the questions with them near the exam centre.

The police officer said officials of WAEC confronted Mireku, collected his mobile device and when it was checked, it was found to contain the exam questions they were yet to write.

He further told the court that Sono was therefore called to the examination centre and he made an undertaking to produce Mireku the following day.

The prosecutor said Sono failed to produce Mireku and was therefore arrested while Mireku immediately went into hiding.

He said on July 6, 2015 Mireku was arrested at his hideout and brought to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) where he mentioned Quantson as the one who sent him the questions.

DSP Dery said Quantson was immediately arrested and he admitted sending the questions to Mireku via WhatsApp, adding that he received them from an unknown person.