A former third Vice President of the Ghana Olympic Committee and current President of the Ghana Badminton Association (GBA) Evans Kojo Yeboah is said to be struggling to make a full refund of the ¢12,000 he allegedly collected from a complainant to facilitate her travel to Italy after the case was reported at the Accra Central Police station.
Yeboah made an initial part-payment of ¢1400 out of the total amount of ¢12, 000 after he was arrested on Thursday, 21st January at a badminton event at the Accra Sports stadium. The GBA President is said to have collected ¢12, 000 out of an agreed sum of ¢36, 000 from the complainant.
A Police source and eye witnesses confirmed the arrest and the part-payment, and added that the case is under investigation.
The New Crusading Guide understands Yeboah could be arranged before court anytime soon as the time for the repayment elapsed last week.
The latest development adds to a tall list of disturbing news about the embattled GBA boss. In the case of the Republic vs. Evans Kojo Yeboah which commenced in October 2014, it is averred that the latter borrowed a sum of ¢2, 000,000 from an Asset Management Firm, MET Capital Group Limited in May 2014. The accused is said to have issued dud cheques in support of repayment that were never honoured. The Court is said to have remarked “that the accused has used all manner of schemes and pretenses to avoid the honourable court and also to prevent the court from bringing finality to the ongoing trial.”
Meanwhile, tt will be recalled that Evans Yeboah was one of the people who was reprimanded by the GOC disciplinary sub-committee for irregularities in the registration of athletes and officials that resulted in the infamous Australia 2018 Commonwealth Games visa fraud. Over 100 Ghanaians were detained and deported from airports in Australia and Singapore during the 2018 Commonwealth Games for attempting to enter Australia by false pretense. Several GOC and government officials were found to be directly complicit in the crime after an investigation by the GOC disciplinary sub-committee.
But months later, a group calling itself Concerned Badminton Stakeholders revealed Evans was under investigation by the World Badminton Federation for similar visa racketeering schemes involving none badminton players.
The latter ‘players’ were registered on the international badminton website by the accused for international competitions around the world but the World badminton governing body realised none of those registered ‘players’ actually took part in the events despite the fact they had acquired visas and had arrived at the event destinations.
Further, two senior badminton players Grace Atipaka and Daniel Sam accused the badminton boss of denying them their 2018 Commonwealth Games scholarship and Rio 2016 Olympic scholarship respectively worth 5,000 pounds each respectively.
The badminton board has currently suspended about 100 percent of the senior national badminton players following their public utterances on alleged injustices meted out to them by the current President and the board. In their place, a national U-17 team is currently being prepared for international assignments such as the upcoming 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Further, the fate of the last elective congress of the badminton association in November 2021 is currently being contested in court by a group of badminton stakeholders who insist the election was fraudulent, coupled with fake members of congress among other things.
Significantly, nobody has been held responsible for the 2018 Australia Commonwealth Games visa racketeering scam till date.
