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Two persons have been picked up at Swedru in the Central Region for registering unqualified candidates to sit for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination for School Candidates (WASSCE-SC) 2024.
A combined team of the Intelligence Unit of the National Security and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) security picked the suspects up while they were attempting to register the candidates.
A private teacher residing at Agona Swedru, Robert Hackman,37, and a part-time teacher in Kenyasi SDA Senior High School, Kwabena Baah Achemfour,54, are helping the Swedru District Police Headquarters in the investigation.
Most of the people mobilised for the illegal registration by Hackman were from Accra, Takoradi, Agona Swedru and Cape Coast. Others were from Dunkwa-On-Offin. They were planning to complete their activities in Swedru and move to Tapa Abotoase in the Biakoye District in the Oti Region.
The suspects had known each other in Agona Nsaba at a time when Achemfour was teaching at the Agona Nsaba JHS. Through social media, Hackman was alleged to have mobilised out of school individuals who once sat for the WASSCE but could not make the grades or had their papers cancelled to re-register for the WASSCE-SC 2024.
The two were able to carry out their activities with a biometric device with the number AY00T004145 with the login code 93868278 and a Lenovo laptop as well as a green lady’s school uniform and a white boy’s shirt.
The two, described as “examination profiteers”, by the security, allegedly registered the unqualified candidates, fed those candidates to mainstream students of the SDA SHS, Kenyasi, and assisted those candidates with foreign materials during examinations.
Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Public Relations Officer of WAEC, John Kapi, said on March 26, 2024, Hackman arranged with the headmistress of Adishie Mma Preparatory School at Swedru to use the ICT laboratory of the school as a registration centre.
“At about 8 a.m., Hackman and Achemfour commenced the illegal registration of those unqualified persons, however, in the process, they were apprehended by the team and sent to the Swedru District Police Headquarters for investigations,” Mr Kapi told the Daily Graphic.
He said investigations revealed that the login code as well as the uniform used belonged to SDA Senior High School (SHS), Kenyasi. The PRO explained that Achemfour was able to lure the unsuspecting persons to register them as candidates in the name of Divine College, which did not exist and charged each of the registered candidates GH¢6,000.00. He was able to register 172 candidates.
“Investigations further revealed that Kwabena had registered some candidates in schools that did not exist and listed the names of the schools as High Moral, OSBY College, His Majesty College, Divine College and Trinity College,” Mr Kapi added.
Mr Kapi said the security team recommended that the SDA SHS, Kenyasi, should be derecognised as a centre for WAEC-conducted examinations. “This, it believed, would halt the illegal registration of candidates and to a large extent limit examination malpractice in the education sector.
“Furthermore, the candidates submitted by SDA SHS for WASSCE-SC 2024 should be scrutinised. That is checked against their enrolment list or blacklisted from WASSCE-SC 2024, since a majority are illegally registered candidates,” Mr Kapi quoted the security report as saying.
