The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng has charged the embattled Municipal Chief Executive aspirant for Juaben, Alexander Kwabena Sarfo-Kantanka with twenty-six counts of corruption in respect of public elections.
According to a writ filed at a Kumasi High Court, and court documents cited by JoyNews, the accused influenced the conduct of about 26 Assembly Members who are members of the Juaben Municipal Assembly by gifting them an amount of GH5,000 during an election to confirm his nomination in September last year.
The meeting to confirm Mr. Sarfo-Kantanka, Juaben Constituency New Patriotic Party Chairman as MCE, was marked with drama as he publicly demanded the refund of monies paid to some Assembly Members to influence them to get him confirmed.
The President’s nominee is said to have assaulted one of the Assembly Members, Patrick Yeboah outside the conference room where the meeting took place.
He failed in yet another attempt to get him confirmed as the first-ever MCE for that newly created municipality, carved out of the Ejisu municipality.
The Special Prosecutor in a letter dated November 2, 2021 invited the embattled Municipal Chief Executive nominee for questioning and subsequently granted him bail.
Bailiffs of the Judicial Service were in the Juaben home of Mr. Sarfo-Kantanka to serve him with the writ of summons on Tuesday May 24,2022 but met his absence.
Officials from the Office of Special Prosecutor and Judicial Service located him at the Juaben NPP office and served him at exactly 10:42am paving way for trial to begin.
Mr. Sarfo-Kantanka is the first of two high-level politicians to be investigated in the Ashanti region in connection with corruption-related election charges.
Former Member of Parliament for Ejisu, Kwabena Owusu Aduomi and a former Deputy Minister of Roads, are also under investigations for a similar offence.
He is said to have publicly admitted on television to paying cash to delegates in the constituency to confirm him as parliamentary candidate.
