Nov-Dec WASSCE Paper Leakage: 2 Remanded

Thursday October 08, 2009
By Stephen Kwabena Effah

THE prosecution in the trial of the two people who allegedly leaked this year’s November/ December West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) papers yesterday told the Accra Circuit Court that they have established the existence of a syndicate in the case.

Consequently, it prayed the court, presided over by Mr. D.E.K Daketsey to refuse the accused persons bail to allow investigators to get to the bottom of the matter and also retrieve some equipment linked to the case.

The court therefore, remanded the accused persons, Francis Ahidome, aka Yesu Vi, a technician, and Magnus Adzimah, aka Rockfeller, a teacher of Adidome Local Authority Primary School in the Volta Region.

The two have pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of stealing, illegal possession of examination papers, conspiracy and leakage of examination, and other related examination malpractices.

According to the West African Examination Council (WAEC), the leakage of the Elective and Core Mathematics , English Language Paper 2, and Integrated Science has cost the Council GH¢200,840.

The two first appeared before the court on September 23.

It is the prosecution case that during the conduct of the November/December 2009 WASSCE English Language Paper One examination on September 12, WAEC picked up information and exhibits which indicated that the papers being written on that day had been compromised.

A complaint was therefore lodged at the Criminal Investigations Department headquarters and investigations led to the arrest of a witness who had in his possession, questions on English Language, Core and Elective Maths papers as well as Integrated Science.

The prosecution told the court that during interrogation the witness, who was preparing for the examination, mentioned Adzimah as the one who gave the question papers to him.

On September 17 Adzimah was arrested at Adidome in the Volta Region when he approached an undercover police officer in an attempt to sell some of the examination questions to her.

During interrogation, Adzimah mentioned Ahidome as his source of supply, he was also arrested to assist the police in further investigations.

According to the prosecution, Ahidome admitted the offence in his statement to the police and stated that he stole the question papers from the booklet maker during their printing.

Ahidome later copied the questions on different sheets of paper and answered some of them after which he gave them to Adzimah, who also labeled them as Junior High School papers and gave them out to students.

The prosecution said investigations revealed that Ahidome was an employee of KEAT Investment Ghana Limited, a company contracted by WAEC to service their printing machines, and he was one of the technicians who worked on the machine.

Further investigations are being conducted in an effort to apprehend other suspects involved in the leakage and distribution of the examination papers.

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