EOCO Freezes Assets Of Council Of State Member Over Alleged Stealing

The Economic and Organized Crimes Office (EOCO) has frozen the assets of a Council of State Member, Nii Kotei Dzani, over a host of allegations, including alleged stealing of land.

41 bank accounts, vehicles and other landed properties belonging to the Council of State member have been put under seizure as part of the EOCO probe which ultimately is aimed to hasten processes to retrieve depositors’ funds locked up with the companies for months after they collapsed.

Other issues behind the freeze include Mr. Dzani’s alleged mismanagement of the defunct First Trust Savings and Loans and Ideal Finance, which Mr. Dzani had founded.

The freeze is also happening after a court had dismissed the Council of State Member’s application to have EOCO cease probing him.

First Trust Savings and Loans and Ideal Finance were part of the financial institutions that had their license revoked by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) as part of the banking sector clean up.

Following from the collapsae, customers have not been able to retrieve their monies and so EOCO stepped in. the investigative body invited Nii Kotei Dzani for questioning over allegations of paying GH₵ 23 million to a client, allegedly stealing a 200-acre land from Ideal Finance, and unlawfully using Ideal Finance funds to build ‘Camp Tsaetse’, a resort in Ada.

Mr. Kotei, while under investigations, went to court to demand that EOCO be tamade to stop investigating him over the collapse of ideal finance, but Justice Afia Serwa Botwe refused.

The court dismissed Mr. Dzani’s claim that he was being harassed by EOCO, saying EOCO has all times been fair to him.

According to the judge, Mr. Dzani’s position that EOCO’s probe of him makes nonsense of his position as Council of State Member is not right and that his position t=does not immune him from investigations.