The Court of Appeal is set to deliver judgment today, December 1, 2022, in the case involving the Founder of the defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien; the Managing Director (MD) of the bank, Fitzgerald Odonkor, and Tettey Nettey, the MD of MC Management Services, a company said to be owned by Essien.
Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge has been presiding over the trial which started on October 15, 2019, and is expected to end today, after two years and five months of trial.
The three have all pleaded not guilty to a combined 23 charges of stealing, abetment to stealing, conspiracy to steal, and money laundering. Mr. William Ato Essien, the first accused person, Tettey Nettey, the second accused person, and Rev. Fitzgerald Odonkor, the third accused person have all mounted their defense to charges.
Charges Levelled Against the Accused Persons
Ato Essien and the two others have been accused of engaging in various illegal acts that led to the dissipation of the GH¢620 million liquidity support given to Capital Bank by the BoG between June 2015 and November 2016. They were subsequently arrested following investigations into the matter.
Following a bail application by their respective lawyers, Essien, Nettey and Odonkor were each granted bail in the sum of GH¢200 million with two sureties who were to be of good character and substance. As part of the bail conditions, Justice Kyei-Baffour further directed them to deposit their passports at the court’s registry.
It is the case of the Attorney General (AG) that Essien, with Odonkor’s aid, transferred the liquidity support to certain companies either controlled by him or in which he had interest. The AG indicated that an amount of GH¢130 million of the liquidity support was transferred to MC Management Services, which was later presented to the BoG as the initial capital to set up Sovereign Bank, another bank in which Essien had an interest.
The AG further alleged that between June and October 2015, Essien, aided by Odonkor, appropriated GH¢c27.5 million of the liquidity support by carrying it in jute bags.
The state prosecutors led by Mrs. Marina Appiah-Opare, a Chief State Attorney (prosecution) called 17 witnesses in the matter.
Revocation of the License
The Capital Bank (Indigenous) was one of the first banks that collapsed after a massive clean-up of financial institutions by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) started in 2017.
The BoG, on August 14, 2017, revoked its license and that of UT Bank after it had declared them insolvent and allowed the state-owned bank, GCB Bank, to acquire the two banks in order to protect depositors’ funds and also enable them to stay afloat.
The hurricane that swept through the banking sector due to the collapse of the two banks further heightened in August 2018 when the central bank collapsed five other indigenous banks and merged them into one entity, known as Consolidated Bank, Ghana.
