A 30-year-old technician at the local government service, Ibrahim Kofi Sessah, has been granted bail by an Accra High Court in a case involving the sale of employment opportunities at the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The Financial and Economic Division of the Accra High Court granted bail to Sessah after he pleaded not guilty to three charges of alleged financial misconduct involving substantial sums to the tune of GHS580,000 accrued from selling GES teacher recruitment forms to 100 unsuspecting victims.

He is being charged with using public office for personal profit together with his accomplice, an IT officer at GES, identified as Anthony Gyasi.

The second and third charges are bribery and money laundering, respectively.

His bail was set at GHS 6.5 million with two sureties, to be justified with landed property within the Greater Accra Region.

At the hearing today, May 5, the judge asked the prosecution to file all disclosure materials within 21 days.

Meanwhile, the case has been adjourned to June 3, 2025.

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Background

Based on criminal intelligence, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) commenced investigations on January 9, 2024, into the illegal sale of Ghana Education Service (GES) appointment letters to prospective applicants seeking to be recruited as teachers into GES.

The intelligence disclosed that the accused person, a technician at local government service, Adeiso District, acting together with other persons and officials of GES solicited money from prospective teacher applicants, generally graduates from various teacher training institutions to corruptly secure their appointment into the GES.

Investigations by the OSP established that the issuance of the appointment letters to prospective teacher applicants was made possible due to the involvement of the accused person herein, acting together with some other suspects, including (1) ANTHONY GYASI (at large), an IT Officer who works at the head office of GES; (2) SADIA ALHASSAN (at large), a teacher at Philip Quaque Boys Basic School under GES, and (3) FRANCIS ASARE (at large), a private businessman.

The investigations further revealed that the accused person, upon the instructions of ANTHONY GYASI received huge sums of money into his Zenith Bank Account No. 4010951648.

These consisted of payments made by prospective teacher applicants to the accused person in exchange for GES appointment letters.

Investigations so far reveal that between January 2022 and December 2023, the accused person received a total of SIX MILLION, FORTY-TWO THOUSAND AND SIX HUNDRED GHANA CEDIS (GHS 6,042,600.00) into his Zenith Bank Account Number 4010951648, which he in turn transferred to ANTHONY GYASI.

Evidence from the investigations shows that during the same period of January 2022 to December 2023, the accused person personally received the sum of FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THOUSAND GHANA CEDIS (GHS 580,000.00) from one Hundred (100) teacher applicants through the sale of GM appointment letters under the pretext of securing their appointment into the GES.

The accused person was subsequently arrested and has been charged with the offences contained in the charge sheet.