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The state benefited by retrieving GHC37m from Ato Essien despite jail sentence – Dep. Attorney-General

Even though the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien has been jailed for the role he played in the collapse of the bank, the state managed to retrieve an amount of million from him before the sentence, Deputy Attorney-General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has said.

Even though the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien has been jailed for the role he played in the collapse of the bank, the state managed to retrieve an amount of million from him before the sentence, Deputy Attorney-General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has said.

Mr Tuah-Yebuah indicated that if Ato Essien had been jailed last year, a time an agreement to repay the money had not been reached,  the state would not have benefited by retrieving the portion of the money.

The Bank of Ghana issued a press release on August 14, 2017, announcing the revocation of the license of Capital Bank due to insolvency.

The CEO of the bank Essien was subsequently slapped with a total jail term of 95 years for multiple counts of stealing and money laundering. These sentences are to run concurrently hence, he will be spending 15 years in jail.

Despite reaching an agreement to refund GHC90 million to the state, he only managed to refund GHC37 million to the state, hence the imposition of the custodial sentence.

Speaking to TV3 after the sentencing, on Thursday, October 12, the Deputy Attorney General said “Effectively, he has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. This is a matter that started long ago and last year, he decided to enter into an agreement for him to take advantage of section 35.

“We were expecting that he would go by the agreement that we had but unfortunately on his part, he could not fulfill his part of the bargain. As we speak he has been able to pay close to about 37 million Cedis and because of his inability to pay the rest, per the agreement that we had, the court had the right to sentence him to a prison term and the court just did that.

“I am yet to get the full complement of the orders of the court, now that he has been imprisoned if he gets the money to pay that is another ballgame to look at because after a court has given its ruling or judgment the court becomes functus officio, so my expectation is that when he pays then he goes into mitigation when he wants to appeal the sentence.

“Let’s hope that he gets the money to pay. Let us also add that even if he is going to serve the 15 years Ghanains have also benefited somehow because at least 37 million Cedis has been paid to the state. if he had been sentenced last year we wouldn’t have even recovered this.”

 

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