Some Takoradi residents have been angered by comments made by Western Regional Minister that their neighbour faked her pregnancy and kidnapping.

They insist 29-year-old Josephine Paynin Simons was pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

Family sources alleged that they had received a call from her supposed kidnappers demanding a ransom for her release.

Seven days later, a carpenter said he found the missing woman at Akim, 60km from the location of her alleged disappearance. 

The tail of events has given the country a lot to think about, considering the disappearance of some four girls in Takoradi about three years ago.

Western Regional Minister Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah said an initial probe by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) suggests the story by the lady is false.  

“From their preliminary investigations, NIB suspects that this whole story was fake and that the medical doctor who has even looked at her revealed she wasn’t pregnant. That is the immediate information that we have. The police are still with her,” he said.

This claim has been vehemently challenged by the husband and neighbours of the woman at the centre of the controversy.

Some of them who spoke to JoyNews’ Western Regional Correspondent, Ina-Thalia Quansah, said Josephine was nine months pregnant before her mysterious disappearance. 

Her husband also described the Minister’s comments as fabrication and questions the doctor’s professionalism in attending to his wife.

He indicated that he should be the first person to be informed of anything regarding her wife.

“We don’t know where the allegations are coming from because neither the police nor the doctor has said anything to us. Neither of them has said anything concerning my wife’s pregnancy to us.”

“So we don’t know where that information is coming from. I have brought a patient to your hospital. I said this is the problem, and you find otherwise. You have to notify me first. You can’t go public with the news that she is not pregnant,” he said.

The residents say they do not trust the doctor attending to Josephine and demand her immediate release.