A former Finance Minister and founder of UniBank, Dr Kwabena Duffuor and eight others standing trial over the collapse of UniBank have been granted a GHC 60 million bail with three sureties with two to be justified.
The passports of the accused have also been detained to forestall any potential jumping of bail.
The presiding judge, Justice Samuel Asiedu warned all lawyers in the case against granting interviews about the pending case, saying he will personally report them to the General Legal Council if he hears even one of such interviews anywhere.
The Attorney General who dragged the accused, including a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Asiama, to court, claim the persons standing trial schemed to GHC 300 million given to the Universal Merchant Bank without following “mandatory statutory conditions”.
Gloria Akuffo explains this was done despite the BoG official being aware of the weak financial state of the defunct UniBank.
The Attorney General also accused Kwabena Duffour, founder of Unibank and his company Hoda holdings of dishonestly receiving over ¢600 million through its subsidiaries out of customers deposits with UniBank.
Ms Akuffo today presented the facts of the case charging Mr Asiamah, Mr Duffour and seven others with falsification of accounts, money laundering, fraudulent breach of trust and willfully causing financial loss to the state.
The suit was filed at the Accra High Court today February 5, 2020.
The latest lawsuit is an interesting twist to a convoluted litigation between the government and Dr Duffuor, who founded the collapsed UNIBANK. Dr. Duffour and Unibank are already in court challenging the government and the Bank of Ghana’s revocation of UniBank’s banking license on August 1, 2018.
The suit which was filed on August 20, 2018, is seeking several declarations, including an order of injunction restraining the Bank of Ghana from expropriating UniBank by its purported vesting of “good assets and liabilities” in Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
Other reliefs are that he wants a declaration that the license purportedly granted to the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited was not granted in accordance with Act 930 and therefore is “null and void.”
Meanwhile, a statement released recently by Dr. Asiama nailed Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta as the man who orchestrated the collapse of UniBank for which he and Dr. Duffour are facing a suit from the government’s Attorney.
According to Dr. Asiama, prior to the bank’s collapse, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) noticed that several government agencies were owing UniBank over GHC 1.3 billion, mostly through the Finance Ministry headed by Mr. Ofori-Atta, and that that debt could potentially cripple UniBank.
Dr. Asiama, in his statement revealed that the BoG actually invited Ken Ofori-Atta to discuss how the bank could be saved from the predicament brought upon it by government debts, but he refused to oblige the central bank.
Incidentally, an 11-page leaked letter dated January 25, 2019, from Attorney-General Gloria Akufo exposed Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta as the man behind the collapse of UniBank, belonging to former Finance Minister Dr. Kwabena Duffour.
A copy of the leaked letter in the possession of Whatsup News shows that President Akufo Addo may have been “misled about the relevant facts informing the impugned decisions culminating in the revocation of the licence of UniBank…,”
Dr Kwabena Duffuor and Dr Asiama appeared before the High Court for the first time since they were put on trial for their involvement in the collapse of Unibank.