Dep. AG Hints of Prosecution of all Persons Involved in Banking Sector Crisis

Alfred Tuah Yeboah, a Deputy Attorney General (AG) and Minister for Justice says persons responsible for the banking crisis will all be prosecuted to recover the money spent on the clean-up of the sector.

The government is said to have expended some GH¢25 billion on the clean-up exercise.

William Ato Essien of defunct Capital Bank is awaiting judgment on November 17, 2022, while Michael Nyinaku of defunct Beige Bank was arraigned on Tuesday and will return on December 22, 2022

The Deputy Attorney General revealed that many others will follow soon.

“The depositors get to be paid by the government. So, we are now in court to prosecute and possibly recover the funds. If you paid an amount of GH¢1.2 billion from the taxpayers money, you will need that money back, and you can get it back if you take a legal action like we have done. I can assure that, there are other cases that we will prosecute to get the monies back”, he told the media.

Michael Nyinaku is facing 43 counts of criminal charges; stealing, fraudulent breach of trust and money laundering.

These follow the revocation of the license of Beige Bank in August 2018.

According to facts presented before the Court, the receiver’s review of the Bank’s financials following the revocation “identified a number of suspicious and unusual transactions”.

The transactions were subsequently investigated, and it was found that Mr Nyinaku transferred, for personal benefit, huge sums of depositors’ funds to companies related to him between 2015 and 2018.

These included the transfer of over GHS 448 million in fixed deposit accounts to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited, over GHS 141 million in fixed deposit investments to Beige Group, and, a transfer of GHS 320 million in March 2018 to a fictitious account in First Africa Savings and Loans which was subsequently transferred to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited.

These, and other transactions, happened without the knowledge of the respective customers, management and shareholders.

Alfred Tuah Yeboah told Journalists after the Court hearing that the case has been thoroughly worked to arrive at these charges.

He maintained that it is only through these actions that the State can recoup the monies expended in the banking sector clean-up exercise.