An Accra Circuit Court yesterday sentenced a driver and a scrap dealer to a 10-year jail term for stealing an electrical switch box worth ¢ 10,000 belonging to the Electricity of Company of Ghana (ECG).
The driver, Fuseini Williams and scrap dealer, Edmund Nii Torgbor Obodai were charged with conspiracy to cause unlawful damage, causing unlawful damage, conspiracy to steal and stealing.
They pleaded guilty to all the charges and were convicted accordingly.
Obodai, who pleaded guilty with an explanation, told the court presided over by Mrs Adelaide Abui-Keddey that upon sighting the switch box, it was covered with refuse and in the bush which made him assumed it was not functioning.
However, the Investigating officer, George Mawuenyegah, presented evidence to the judge showing the state of the switch box before it was tampered with by the convicts.
Ms Abui-Keddey subsequently condemned the duo to serve a ten-year jail term with an observation that stealing of electrical gadgets and cables was becoming rampact and “unbecoming”.
Narrating the facts of the case, Police Chief Inspector Maxwell Ayim who held brief for Chief Inspector George Nana Akomeah told the court the complainant was Jeremiah Ashong, a security guard with Dap Security Company.
The court heard that on October 2, this year, Austin Peter, a security guard with Dap Security, while on deployment at Zackem Construction near Ridge Church School spotted the convicts carrying an electrical switch box.
“Peter questioned them and during the engagement accused persons threw the switch box away and took to their heels. An alarm was raised which led to their arrest by neighbors around and a cutter retrieved from them,” Insp Ayim said.
He added that further investigation disclosed that the accused persons used the cutter to cut the wires connecting the switch box mounted near the Ridge Church School to regulate the street lights within the area and stole same but were intercepted by the witness who prevented them from leaving the area with it.
BY NANA BENTSI ODURO
