MP for Assin North charged with 5 criminal offenses including forgery and perjury

The Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson, has been charged with five criminal offences including forgery and perjury by the Attorney- General’s Office.

The embattled MP has been slapped with an additional charge of deceit and knowingly making a false declaration to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he did not owe allegiance to another country to acquire a Ghanaian passport.

On the charge of perjury, the State accuses the MP of making a false statement at Assin Fosu in the Central region, that he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana, a statement he did not have a reason to believe to be true at the time of making it.

The MP who was expected to appear before an Accra High court today, Thursday, February 3, 2022, didn’t show up as prosecutors narrated how they had been unable to serve him with the summons.

According to the prosecutors, the accused was called on the phone about the charges and a message was sent to him but the police were unable to personally reach him.

The court subsequently directed that a hearing notice be issued and served on the MP directing him to appear in court on Wednesday, February 9, 2022.

The criminal summons filed by the Attorney General’s Office recounts the facts of the case as follows:

“The brief facts of this case are that the accused person James Gyakye Quayson is the Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency. The complainant, Richard Takyi-Mensah is a teacher and a resident of Yamoransa in the Central Region of Ghana.

On 26th July 2019, the accused person signed an application form for a Republic of Ghana passport. In the application form, he indicated that he is a Ghanaian and does not have dual citizenship.

The accused at the time held Canadian citizenship issued on 30th October 2016 but failed to declare the same on the application form. The passport application of the accused person was vetted on the 29th of July 2019.

Based on this false information together with the other information provided by the accused person on the passport application form, he was issued with a Ghanaian passport, number G2538667 on 2nd August 2019.

Again, before the 2020 General Elections of Ghana was conducted on 7th December 2020, nominations were opened between the 5th and the 9th of October 2020. The accused person picked up nomination forms to contest for the position of Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency.

The accused person at the time was a Ghanaian and a Canadian citizen, making him a dual citizenship holder. Therefore, he was disqualified under Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana to be a Member of Parliament.

In part IV of the nomination forms of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, the accused person used a statutory declaration which he had sworn to on 6th October 2020 before the District Court Registrar at Assin Fosu stating that he does not owe allegiance to any country other than Ghana.

The accused person further went ahead to file his nomination forms on 8th October 2020 with the false information in the statutory declaration. Based on this false information together with other information provided by the accused person in the nomination forms, his nomination was accepted by the Electoral Commission.

He contested for the position and subsequently won the seat. The accused person was issued a Certificate of Renunciation of his Canadian citizenship dated 26th November 2020, about forty-eight days after he had made the false statutory declaration and filed his nomination forms.

On 14th January 2021, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department received a petition dated 11th January 2021 from the complainant in which the complainant reported these actions of the accused, leading to investigations against him. In his cautioned statement to the police, the accused person claimed that at the material time, he honestly believed that he did not owe allegiance to any other country. The accused person was subsequently charged with the offences in the charge sheet.

It is based on these facts that the accused person, James Gyakye Quayson has been arraigned for trial.”

Source: Thenewsroomonline