Keche’s Wife Entangled In ID Fraud

The billionaire wife of musician Keche Andrew has been blocked by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) from contesting in its May 13 parliamentary election, after she was caught in questionable acts regarding her voter and party cards.

According to the NDC, the businesswoman, who brought some level of excitement into the race, engaged in Identification Card fraud and a couple of alleged fraudulent activities in her quest to be part of this year’s primaries.

Mrs. Joana Gyan Cudjoe picked nomination forms to contest the Amenfi Central constituency parliamentary primaries, but it appears she may not take part in the exercise after all, as her alleged forgery case has been referred to the national headquarters of the party in Accra for further direction.

The MP hopeful emerged on the scene as one of the new kids on the block in the NDC, enthusiastically hoping to enter parliament, by unseating the incumbent, Yaw Kwakye-Ackah, who also belongs to the Minority side.

Unconfirmed reports available to this paper however suggest she, Mrs. Gyan Cudjoe, has been cleared by the national executives after an appeal and she is currently placed on number five on the ballot paper.

But for a party that has in recent years suffered reduction in their number in the current hung parliament, because of some of these lacks of due diligence, it has put a break on Mrs.Cujoe candidature, together with others in the region.

A report from the Western Regional Vetting Committee, chaired by the Director of Communications of the NDC, Kakra Essamuah, said Mrs. Cudjoe had two different voter ID numbers (67610125841 and 67610125891) and found to have used someone else’s Voter ID number as hers, amounting to identity fraud.

But one of these two voter ID numbers, specifically 67610125841, was recorded in the Registration book of the party.

The Anchor gathered from the report that the parliamentary hopeful’s double membership of the party featured prominently during the two-day exercise.

She is a member of the Bantama constituency NDC in the Ashanti Region and at the same time Amenfi Central in the Western Region, which is allowed by the party.

According to the regional report, sighted by this paper, the team also detected that the voter ID number in the name of the aspirant mentioned as 6761012589, belonged to one Siedu Bala and not her.

It said the same number, which was supposed to be a 10-digit number, had additional number one (1) added to it, making it 11 digits instead of 10, as is the case for every registered Ghanaian voter.

“She has NDC Membership in Amenfi Central which bears the Branch name Methodist JHS Manso Amenfi but the code or number in a different Branch at Juabo,” the report also said.

The report, which also gave verdicts of three other aspirants from the region, said that “One Sherita Mensah’s party membership ID number E170660011 which was in the original Registration Green book was given to Joana Gyan Cudjoe to register her (Joana) in the Branch Membership Register for Bronikrom Presby Church B.”

The Kakra Essamuah-led committee said a portion of the sheet that originally had Sherita’s name in the register was torn from the register, but the complementary sheet remained intact in the register.

In addition, the membership register, which originally contained 13 registered members of that branch, conspicuously increased to 14 names in the NDC memberships Register for Bantama constituency.

It also said the aspirant’s name was not in any of the voter register in 2008, 2012, 2016 or 2020 register by the Electoral Commission of Ghana in Bantama Constituency, after testifying before the vetting committee that she started voting in 2008.

It is expected that anyone aspiring to contest in the party parliamentary primaries is required to have been a member of the NDC for a period of four years, failure to which that person would be deemed as not eligible.

In the case of the businesswoman, the committee which determined the eligibility or otherwise as stipulated in the Guidelines, established that, she registered just recently in 2020 in Amenfi Central.

“The suspicion heightened when the chairman of Bantama branch of the party came to testify against the aspirant that she was not a member of the branch.

It also came to light that the actual Branch register is now under the custody of the Ashanti regional chairman.

The committee requested, through the general secretary for the original Register of Bronikrom Presby Church, which is in the custody of the Ashanti regional chairman, for authentication.”

With all these allegations against the aspirant, the committee was silent on which party officers dabbled in these suspected fraudulent activities on behalf of the musician’s wife.

The committee decided to refer the matter to Accra for further deliberation and advice. Three other parliamentary hopefuls, whose candidature suffered similar fate, were one George Dadzie Jnr., Frank Kwofie Pinto and Mavis Kuukua Bissue.

source: Anchorghana.com