Singing Capital Bank CEO in Hot Soup -Charged for stealing whopping GHC 270 million

The Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of defunct Capital Bank, Ato Essien who recently exposed the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for attempting to buy off his Bank has been slapped with a tall list of 26 criminal charges by the State.

Included in the suit are Fitzgerald Odonkor Managing Director of the defunct bank and two others.

The charge sheet signed by Chief State Attorney Marina Appiah Opare and dated October 8, 2019, basically comprise money laundering, stealing, conspiracy to steal and abetment of stealing.

For instance, on the first charge of the suit by the State, Mr. Ato-Essien is said to have conspired to steal GHC 100,000, 000 from Capital Bank. “ 1) William Ato Essien 2) Tetteh Nettey between October and November 2015 in Accra in the Greater-Accra Region agreed to act together with a common purpose to steal the sum of GHC 100,000,000 the property of Capital Bank Limited,” the charge sheet read.

In total, these alleged culprits from the defunct Capital banks are being accused of steal a total of about GHC 270 million between late 2015 and 2016.

About two weeks ago Ato Essien in a face-to-face interview on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana disclosed how Ken Ofori-Atta and his partner Keli Gadzekpo had approached him to buy off Capital Bank, hinting at a possible witch-hunt.

Ken Ofori-Atta and Keli Gadzekpo had denied the revelation, saying there was not serious interest shown in the bank. However, a couple of paper evidence showed that indeed, the two had pursued the deal to buy Capital Bank seriously, as they corresponded on several occasions with the owners of the bank to invest in it.

“If our bank was that bad, our current Finance Minister together with the CEO of Enterprise Group, Kelly Gadzekpo,” won’t have come to his office to say they “were interested in buying the bank,” Ato Essien revealed.

This charge against Capital Bank is coming on the heels of a promise made by the Attorney General that about 50 directors and owners of the approximately seven collapsed banks will soon be prosecuted.

Receivers for the banks had also begun legal proceedings against them for their roles in the collapse of the banks.

Capital Bank was found to be owing GHc468 million in questionable deals.

In August 2017, the central bank revoked the license of two commercial banks – UT Bank and Capital Bank. Subsequently, in 2018, the BoG further revoked more banks-approximately seven (7) banks in total.

The other banks that have so far collapsed under similar circumstances are: UT Bank, Beige Bank, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, UniBank, and Royal Bank. All of these banks have been merged and taken over by State-owned Consolidated Bank of Ghana (CBG).

These banks have been consolidated into a government entity called the Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) and have gulped almost US$ 2 billion in bailout from the government. In addition to the seven collapsed banks, a total in excess of 300 different financial institutions in Ghana have lost their operating licenses and have consequently led to the loss of jobs for several thousands of workers.

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