By Adu Koranteng
A pastor with the Royal House Chapel, Pastor Anthony Adornyo, has been accused of defrauding an artisanal miner Alhassan Mohammed, Of a sum of GHC14, 300 with the pretext of providing him an excavator to facilitate his mining activities. The pastor allegedly took the money and bolted after failing to deliver on his promise.
Speaking to the New Crusading Guide in an interview, 34 year old Alhassan Mohammed said in April 2012, he and his colleague workers were ??working in one of their mine sites in Akwatia in the eastern region when Pastor Anthony Adornyo, head pastor of the Akwatia branch of the Royal House Chapel came to inform them that his church had imported an excavator from abroad which could help them dig and produce more gold should they rent it from him.
?We decided to rent the excavator from him because he is a man of God and very popular in Akwatia. He told us that he would rent the excavator to us for 14,300 for ?ten days which we paid. In fact, I personally gave the money to him when he brought us to Tema to take charge of the excavator. Upon giving the money to him on 29th April 2012, he told me and my friends ?to wait for a while and went to a bank in Tema Community2 to deposit the money and later told us that he had paid the money and thus going to the main harbor to clear the excavator from the port for us. We waited for a while and when he failed to turn up we called his phone lines, but they were all off. We tried the numbers for several days but they failed to go through?, Alhassan Mohammed Narrated.
He further explained that ?We lodged a complaint with the Police at Anyinam in the Eastern region and managed to arrest Pastor Anthony Adornyo who was handed over to the Police. The Anyinam Police informed us that because the incident occurred in Tema they would transfer him to the Harbor Police station to write his statement. At the Tema harbor Police station, Pastor Adornyo was processed before the Tema Circuit court B where he was remanded in prison custody for two weeks. After the two weeks, one of his pastors from the church came to grant him bail and gave out a luxurious Ford explorer pickup as surety.
?The car according to the court official would be at the court until the case is concluded and he had finished paying the money. Interestingly, the next time we went to the court the car had been released when Pastor Anthony had not paid a penny to me?.
?I called the Police Investigator in charge of the case Rexford Yamoah, to verify why the car was? ?released when the money had not been paid. For several days, his phone would ring but he would not ??answer. However, when I used a different numbers to call ?him,? he ?picked them ?and when he realized it is me? he would hung up. So in the end the man defrauded me and when I reported to the Police he was arrested and released like that and I think I have been denied justice. I suspected that money has changed hands and it could be my own money that has been used to compromise this people.? I go beneath the ground where the is no air to dig soil and extract gold in order to make money and this pastor used just a day to dupe me of all the money I have? suffered for. I sought justice with the Police and the Judiciary and I am being denied?.
?I am appealing to the Chief Justice, Mrs. Georgina Wood and the inspector General of Police to investigate the conduct of their staff with regard to this case to help ensure Justice. As a Moslem I could have taken dreadful action against the pastor but I had a trust in the justice system hence the need to resort to their assistance and I still believe they will not let me down?, he added.
When the Investigative Team of the New Crusading Guide visited the Tema Harbor Police, the Investigator in charge of the case Corporal Rexford Yamoah, refused to respond to the issue with the excuse that he is below the rank that allows him to speak to the media. He therefore told the investigative team to go to the crime officer for briefing on the case but this was delayed for several hours. The team ??however managed to contact the crime officer ASP Johnson he expressed shock and surprise about the whole issue and said he is not aware and had not been briefed by the CID as he had earlier told the team.
He ordered CID Yamoah to his office to brief him on the case. When he was informed, ASP Johnson asked CID Yamoah,? am I aware of this case?? he replied ?No Sir?. So the crime officer told the crusading Guide team that he is not privy to the issues.? I don?t know anything about this case. It happened before I was transferred here and I can?t tell you anything about it. Please let me get a detailed briefing from the CID and further brief the Public relations officer and we will call you later to explain everything to you,.?, he stated. However, this call did not come after a week
The investigative team later went to the Tema circuit court to get details of the case that was sent there but after about four hours of search, at the registry, the team was told that the docket could not be found.
In a related development, the associate pastor of the Royal House Chapel, Reverend Johnny Appiah Koran,? in an interview over the issue Said that the church heard about the incident sometime last year and based on that Pastor Anthony was suspended from the church. ?He is no longer a pastor in our church. Yes he was an acting pastor of the Church in Akwatia. We realized that he wasn?t performing his duties as required upon assessment so we recalled him to the head office. Just after that these charges were leveled against him and based on that he was suspended. So as I speak to you he is not a pastor in this church, if he is claiming he is, and then I must say he is not telling the truth. Asked whether the church gave Pastor Anthony a suspension letter to officially inform him of his suspension and the reasons why he was suspended, he said no. ? well, he was appointed without an appointment letter and so he was suspended by word of mouth?.
When the New Crusading Guide investigative team contacted pastor Adornyo on phone, he denied knowing Alhassan he denied ever receiving ?money from Alhassan, he claimed that the court has? discharged and set him free? because? Alhassan did not give him any money. However, the clerks at the court indicated that though they could not find the docket, they were sure ruling has not been given and promised to continue the search to find the missing docket.
Alhassan is therefore appealing to the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Alhassan and the Chief Justice, Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood to order investigations into the case to find whether the missing docket was deliberate or not and why the car that was presented as a surety was released when the accused person settled the debt.
Pastor Anthony Adornyo
