The Accra High Court will today (Thursday, December 1, 2022) deliver judgment in the case of the defunct Capital Bank Founder William Ato Essien and two others.
The accused persons, Mr Ato Essien, Rev. Fitzgerald Odonkor and Tetteh Nettey were charged with 23 counts of conspiracy, stealing from the GH¢620 million liquidity support given to the bank by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), to enable it to service its maturing debt.
The accused persons, according to the prosecution, opened various bank accounts with Capital Bank through which the GH¢620 million BoG liquidity support was transferred while others were carried in jute bags to Ato Essien.
All three have however pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained their innocence throughout the trial.
Mr Ato Essien, in his defence, insisted that at all material times he had the Board’s approval for all actions.
The prosecution closed its case on April 29, 2021, after calling 17 witnesses to prove the allegations against the three persons.
Afterwards, Mr Ato Essien opened his defence on November 4, 2021, and subpoenaed three witnesses while the other accused persons did not call any witnesses aside themselves.
Background
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.