Court remands accountant for forging 39 GRA official receipts leading to loss of over GH¢2.4m

A 34-year-old accountant with Medeena Consult Limited, Michael Sumnaya Adedina, has been remanded by the Circuit Court in Accra into police custody for an unauthorized attempt to collect tax contrary to Section 75 of the Revenue Administration Act 2016 (Act 915).

The accused is said to have allegedly forged 39 Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) official payment receipts leading to the loss of over GHc2.4 million to the state.

He was arraigned on seven counts namely forgery of an official document contrary to section 158 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29), stealing contrary to Section 124(1) of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) and fraudulent breach of trust contrary to section 128 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) and making false or misleading statements contrary to section 74 of the Revenue Administration Act 2016 (Act 915).

The accused pleaded not guilty to all the counts and had been remanded to reappear on January 17, 2024.

His lawyers had prayed the court to admit him to bail on grounds that, he has sureties of independent means to ensure he avails himself to stand trial.

But his request was opposed by the prosecution on grounds that the accused is likely to interfere with investigations.

The Court presided over by Mrs Afua Owusua Appiah struck out two of the counts including Impeding tax administration because they did not support the charges.

Brief facts:

Per the brief facts of the case as presented to the Court by the prosecutor, DSP Evans Kesse, the complainant in the case is the country manager for BMG Infrastructure Company Limited located at Tarkwa in the Western Region.

He said the company was a foreign-owned company registered with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC established in the aforesaid area in 2021 and it is into mining Waste processing.

According to him, the accused person approached the complainant and introduced himself as a professional accountant, who could prepare all their accounts and represent their interests professionally.

Consequently, the company outsourced the services to the accused person in all matters relating to accounting, including statutory payments and the preparation of various tax types with the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust for its employees.

After each payment, ASP Kesse said, the accused person furnished official receipts to the complainant from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as proof of payment.

He told the court that, on May 31, 2023, the GRA conducted a tax audit into the activities of BMG Infrastructure Limited and detected a tax liability of GH¢2,495,778.00 against the company, which raised suspicion.

The prosecutor said consequently, the Company launched investigations to find out the cause of that huge liability.

ASP Kesse said during investigations, they gathered that the accused person had over the period failed to pay all the monies he collected from BMG as taxes to GRA.

He said, a report was made to the GRA through GIPC with the corresponding receipts for verification and it was realised that the accused person had been forging the GRA official receipts.

The prosecutor said that following this worrying development, an official complaint was made on December 29, 2023, to the investigation wing of GRA and the accused person was arrested for investigations.

During interrogation and in his caution to the Police, the accused admitted the offence and said, he downloaded the GRA payment receipts from PDF to Word and edited them to insert the tax figures and presented the forged receipts to the complainant as though genuine taxes had been paid.

He disclosed that he used part of the money to buy concessions for mining purposes, which went bad and that he used part of the money to buy a Toyota Hilux pickup at the cost of GH$ 650, 000.00 and a Lexus SUV vehicle at the cost of GH¢ 550, 000.00.

He further stated that he used some of the proceeds to put up a four-bedroom self-contained house at Tarkwa Aboso.

Further investigation is ongoing to identify these assets for action.