The Ghana police service has issued a warrant of arrest for one David Yevugah, a former employee of KEDA Ceramics, a joint venture operating in Shama in the Western region of Ghana. This comes after the police gazetted and published him in the media as a wanted man who jumped bail.
David Yevugah, a former human resource manager at KEDA Ceramics, was first arrested in 2024 by the Secondi divisional police command upon a report made by KEDA after detection by internal auditors found that he had fraudulently caused the company to make false payments of colossal sums of money to a third-party company JR Consult for no work done.
It was later discovered by investigations that David Yevugah was colluding and sharing the colossal sums of false payments with JR Consult.
After his arrest and brief detention, David Yevugah was granted bail by the Secondi divisional police command. However, while police investigation was still ongoing into his alleged fraud in the KEDA company, the former human resource manager resigned his position and demanded a severance package from the company, a demand the company turned down, considering that he was still under police investigation and facing potential criminal prosecution.
Unknown to the company, David Yevugah had stolen confidential information from within before his resignation and threatened to use every means necessary to tarnish the company’s image unless they paid him some money.
David Yevugah later jumped police bail and absconded, abandoning his wife and others who stood surety for him. He is now believed to be hiding in the United Kingdom from where he is now fighting the company by throwing out allegations in the media.
Recently, David Yevugah, the same wanted man, wrote a petition from his hideout to the President of Ghana and other government agencies alleging that KEDA Ceramics was evading taxes and pension payments for employees. The allegations received wide publicity in the media.
But unknown to the public, the person making these allegations received sponsorship for his PhD studies from KEDA while he worked with them. He also lived in the company’s own built villa, received health insurance for himself and his family and also enjoyed sponsored trips abroad not to mention fuel allowances and other long-term benefits. The treatment David Yevugah received was at odds with his allegations against the company for tax evasion and impairing the employees’ benefits.
Besides, the timing when David found and reported the allegations was quite tricky, as he did not find any misconduct on the part of the company until he was denied a severance package.
If David Yevugah, a former HR manager, was denied SSNIT contributions by the company he worked for, he certainly wouldn’t have waited until he was arrested by police for stealing from the company before petitioning about it.
To make matters even worse, David Yevugah has acted in ways that take away every credibility from him. By jumping police enquiry bail, getting gazetted and published by the police as a wanted man in relation to his misconduct at KEDA, it leaves little doubt about his guilt in the matter for which KEDA reported him to the Ghana police.
On the other hand, KEDA’s lawyers have dismissed the allegations published in Yevugah’s petition, and the company has welcomed any external audit to corroborate its well-known record of integrity and lawful culture over the years. According to the previous regular audits, the KEDA had consistently paid all required taxes and social security contributions.
In a statement signed by Peter Hayibor Esq, external lawyer for KEDA Ghana Ceramics Company Limited, the company dismissed claims by David Yevugah in his petition as false attempts to blackmail the company and tarnish its hard-earned reputation in his attempt to escape justice.
The statement also added that the former employee, who is now on the run from the police, also breached the Data Protection Act by stealing company data before resigning and has since been trying to use that information to blackmail the company, but to no avail.
It is generally agreed that those who wish to come to equity must come with clean hands. For David Yevugah, who is currently a desperado refusing to face justice for alleged fraudulent conduct against his former employer, certainly, he certainly would fail the test of clean hands.
