ANTWI AND ANOTHER v. THE REPUBLIC

JUDGMENT OF KORANTENG-ADDOW J.

In this rather interesting case the two appellants were charged with another who was acquitted and discharged at the conclusion of the prosecution's case with the three offences of conspiracy to steal, forgery and stealing.

The first appellant is a forester in the Forestry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the others are clerical assistants working under him at their office at Yendi. The first appellant had the responsibility of the general running of the office including the making of vouchers for the payment of salaries and wages. In June 1969 the office became understaffed. It had no typist but there was typing work which had to be done. The first appellant therefore arranged with the two clerical assistants to do the typing work in their leisure time. For their remuneration he conceived of and evolved a scheme whereby they could be paid for the work done. He decided to include the name of a fictitious person in the list of employees as a temporary typist and to pay the clerical assistants their remuneration for the work done out of the wages of the so-called employee. In preparing the voucher for the month of June he caused the name of a Mr. E. K. Adu to be included in the voucher prepared for the wages of the employees. When the voucher was passed and the money for Mr. E. K. Adu was received, the first appellant made a compilation of the work done by the two clerical assistants, paid them what was due to them and paid back into the government chest the amount remaining, that is to say, the part of the salary of the so-called Mr. E. K. Adu that was not used.

The salary of the Mr. E. K. Adu was to be N¢22.68. Out of that amount N¢12.00 was used in paying the two clerical assistants and the balance of N¢10.68 was paid back into the government chest.

The third accused was acquitted and discharged at the close of the prosecution's case because it was established by the evidence that he was away on leave in June 1969 and had nothing to do with the preparation of the voucher. Although he received his share of the amount alleged to have been stolen, he did not know how the money was obtained. The first and second accused (the appellants) were convicted on all three counts.

I will deal with the charge of forgery first, (count 2) and then deal with count 1 (conspiracy to steal) and count 3 (stealing) after that. The forgery which is alleged to have been committed by the appellants is that:

"during the month of J