The High Court, Commercial Division, has given the founder of defunct Capital bank, Ato Essien one last shot at negotiating with the State on charges brought against him for his involvement or otherwise in the collapse of the bank.
Ato Essien and three other former top executives of the collapsed entity; Fitzgerald Odonkor, Tetteh Nettey and Kate Quartey-Papafio have been charged with 26 counts of criminal offences including stealing and defrauding by false pretences, for their respective roles in the collapse of the bank.
Mr. Essien in May 2020 told the Court presided over Justice of the Court of Appeal, Eric Kyei Baffour sitting as an additional High Court Judge, that he was willing to refund GHS27.5 million, which he is being accused of using for business promotion, in order for the charges against him to be dropped.
His lawyer, Baffuor Gyewu Bonsu told the Court in May that GHS 1.4 million of the amount had already been paid.
Appearing in Court today, however, a Chief State Attorney, Marina Appiah Oppong said the negotiations failed.
She said Mr. Essien presented a first proposal that was unsatisfactory, as such, it was turned down.
A second proposal she said had already been responded to by the State which response was yet to be served on the Defence Counsel.
Justice Kyei Baffour thus ruled based on the Chief State Attorney’s plea that the case should be adjourned to the 9th of July 2020 to allow for the two parties to conclude the negotiations.
He, however, directed that “notwithstanding any possible outcome of the negotiations, a trial will proceed on the next adjourned date.”
Meanwhile, the State has amended its charges against the founder of collapsed Unibank, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor in a case also being heard at the High Court.
Duffuor is being tried for his alleged role in the collapse of UniBank.
The former Central Bank Chief is also standing trial with a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Asiama and other former executives of the uniBank for fraudulent breach of trust, money laundering, contravention of the Bank of Ghana Act and Conspiracy to commit crime.
The State today, June 18, 2020, added three more charges to the 68 already levelled against them.
They have however been admitted to bail and adjourned to July 16th and 17th for Case Management.