TETTEH v. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant was convicted by the circuit judge, Accra, on two counts: the first count charged him with stealing 6,795 gallons of petrol valued at £G1,189 2s. 6d. and the second charged him with falsification of accounts.

The appellant was employed as works clerk in the survey and design section of the Division of Public Construction which was later converted into the Ghana National Construction Corporation, hereinafter referred to as the corporation, and had served in that capacity for eight years before his conviction. His duties included requisitioning petrol for the running of a number of vehicles used by his section, receiving the petrol when supplied, making a record of the quantities received in a book provided for that purpose, making issues of petrol to the drivers of the said vehicles, and recording the issues he so made in another book; he also had to see to it that each driver to whom he issued any petrol recorded the quantity issued to him in a log-book allocated to his vehicle.

On the 10th July, 1961, an investigation officer of the corporation checked the books of the appellant, and discovered that although he had correctly entered up all petrol he received on behalf of the corporation up to that date, he had made no record in the appropriate book for recording issues made to drivers since 1959; the last entry in the issue book being made on the 23rd June, 1959; the officer also discovered that there were only six gallons of petrol in stock on the say day. When called upon by the investigating officer to account for the petrol, the appellant said he had issued all the petrol for the use of the corporation’s vehicles. The appellant produced four log-books in respect of four of the vehicles, but even these covered only the 29th January, 1960, to the 10th July, 1961. The total quantity of petrol recorded by the appellant as received on behalf of the corporation worked out at 9,095 gallons, and the total issues to the four vehicles over that portion of the period covered by the log-book was 2,300, leaving 6,795 gallons unaccounted for. That quantity therefore formed the subject of the count of stealing, and the omissions to make entries of petrol supplied to the vehicles as and when the issues were made formed the subject of the count of falsification.

Counsel for the appellant argued firstly that each of the two counts upon which the appellant was convicted was bad for duplicity and contr