I stole to finance NPP – Man tells court

A High court in Tamale has granted bail to a man brought before it on police charges that he defrauded and stole nearly one million cedis from a company he worked with to bankroll activities of the New Patriotic Party in the Northern region.

The court had delayed making a decision on whether to grant him bail on Thursday, August 17, a day after he was arrested following a shocking disclosure that the regional minister had deep ties and his name was mentioned many times in the suspect’s narrations.

The suspect, Alhassan Hafiz Sibdoo has worked for more than seven years as salesperson at the As- Sahabah company, a cosmetic firm that supply detergents and soaps in large quantities in the region.

On 16th of this month, the manager of the company Prince Osman Sahabi caused his arrest after he found that an amount of GH935,87 was missing and couldn’t be accounted for by the salesman.

This was after he had openly explained to his boss that he did political financing with the sales and mentioned that the regional minister, Salifu Saeed encouraged him and pledged that all his money will be refunded when the party was in power and he (minister) occupied a political office.

But after victory for the NPP and Salifu Saeed being appointed as minister, what the poor salesman received regularly from executives of the party including the minister were broken promises and outright deceit that has finally expose into a snare.

The manager had tried to engage with some of the regional executives for a settlement but their languishing attitude towards the negotiations compelled him to take the legal action. There had been several meetings and non-yielded progressive results.

Starr News revealed the executives consistently failed to keep their word and kept making shifting pronouncement. Sources told StarrNews there were evidences to prove he financed the party and some activities of the regional minister.

On August 17, when the case called at the High Court 2 presided over by His Honor William Appiah Twumasi, Allhassan Hafiz said once again that he invested in strengthening the regional communication directorate by empowering communicators and organizing Quran recitals for the party. He said he did that because the regional minister guaranteed a quick refund when he was given a position to serve.

Following many other revelations and compelling facts, the judge allegedly ordered the prosecutors to extend investigations into the minister’s office and remanded the fraud and theft suspect for two weeks.

However, when the case was called again on Monday, August 28, 2017 prosecutors did not divulge the content of their probe and only handed it over to the Judge in a written statement who also made no comment about the report.

The suspect who was looking sad, uncertain and hopeless whiles the judge was busily entering records of the day’s proceeding, raised up his finger immediately after the court clerk mentioned the case. The Judge’s attention was drawn and he sustained to grant him hearing.

Hafiz then pleaded guilty of the charges and begged not be sent to jail after pledging to refund the all money. His Honor William Twumasi taking into consideration the demeanor of the suspect convicted him on his own plea to a fined of GH3,000.00 or in default four years in prison.

A number of NPP regional communication members including Adam A. Gafaru, Gazale Mankarigu were in the court to support HafiZ Sibdoo. His family and friends also came in numbers and some verbally attacked manager of the company describing his as wicked for jailing his own worker.