[BREAKING NEWS]: Capital Bank’s Ato Essien Jailed 15 Years For Stealing

William Ato Essien, the founder of the defunct Capital Bank, has been slapped with a 15-year jail term in hard labour for stealing over GH₵90 million belonging to his bank.

It will be recalled that Mr Essien was required to pay GH₵20 million by the end of April, but as of July 4, he had managed to pay only GH₵7 million, breaching the terms of the agreement that saved him from going to jail after he was convicted.

Mr Essien was on trial with two others — Rev. Fitzgerald Odonkor and Tetteh Nettey — for their roles in the collapse of the defunct Capital Bank.

However, Rev. Odonkor and Mr Nettey were acquitted and discharged.

Mr Essien was charged with 16 counts of conspiracy and stealing from the GH¢620 million liquidity support given to the Capital Bank by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to enable it to service maturing debts.

Mr Essien was found guilty of stealing over GH¢90m of depositors’ funds after he pleaded guilty to 16 counts of stealing and money laundering.

In its ruling, the trial judge, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, held that the convict failed to pay the restitution and, thus, the sentence.

According to the judge, Essien exploited Capital Bank to his advantage and dissipated the funds of the bank without taking into consideration the depositors of the bank.

“The convict demonstrated sheer greed in his desire to own another bank besides Capital Bank Ltd and left no stone unturned through subterfuge and deceit with pure criminal intent to set up Sovereign Bank Ltd.

“Being in a position of trust, he was expected to have demonstrated a sense of responsibility and true fidelity. He had no cause, whatsoever, to steal such gargantuan sums of money,” the court said.

Capital Bank was one of the first banks that collapsed after a massive clean-up of financial institutions by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) starting in 2017.

On August 14, 2017, its licence and UT Bank were revoked by the BoG after the central bank had declared them insolvent.

The central bank allowed the state-owned bank, the GCB Bank, to acquire the two banks to protect depositors’ funds and enable them to stay afloat.

The hurricane that swept through the banking sector due to the collapse of the two banks heightened in August 2018 when the central bank collapsed five other indigenous banks and merged them into one entity — Consolidated Bank, Ghana.