Deputy Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, says the country would have set a dangerous precedent if it had extended the payment deadline for the founder of defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien.
In an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face on Citi TV, the Deputy Attorney-General emphasized that other people who owe the state would abuse the system if Ato Essien’s payment time were extended.
“In this case, the judge then agreed, and it was adopted. In such agreements, you make sure that there’s a default clause that, in case the accused person fails to pay, then the outstanding sum becomes payable. In that particular case it was almost GH¢90 million, he paid GH¢30 million. He was supposed to have been paying GH¢20 million every other four months. The first GH¢20 million he defaulted, and so, we had to trigger the clauses in the agreements to the effect that all the outstanding sum was to be paid.”
“He couldn’t pay, so the only option was for the court to slap a custodial sentence on him. It could have set a dangerous precedent if the time was extended. Other people may say you can agree with the state even if you default. The state will extend the time for you, and for that matter, the law will not even work.”
The Deputy Attorney-General advised persons who go into agreements with the state to fulfil their part of the bargain to avoid jail terms.
“If you agree with the state, make sure that whatever proposal that you bring, you will go by it. In this particular case, he was talking about one year, and we said we will give him 6 months,” he entreated.
Background
William Ato Essien, in October 2023, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with hard labor by the Accra High Court for stealing over GH¢90 million of the bank’s money.
On December 13, 2022, Essien pleaded guilty to 16 counts of stealing and money laundering when he admitted to dissipating over GH¢90 million of liquidity support extended to Capital Bank by the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
He was accordingly convicted by the court but avoided a custodial sentence when he reached an agreement with the Attorney-General (A-G) to repay the GH¢90 million to the state as reparation and restitution.
The agreement was pursuant to Section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459), which allows accused persons standing trial for causing economic loss to the state to admit the offense and pay the money to possibly avoid prison.
Essien paid GH¢30 million in December last year, and per the agreement as adopted by the court was supposed to pay the remaining GH¢60 million in three GH¢20 million instalments, with the first payment on or before April 28, 2023; the second payment on or before August 31, 2023, and the last tranche on or before December 15, 2023.
It can, therefore, be said that Essien sent himself to prison when he failed to meet the deadlines to pay the money per the agreed terms, forcing the A-G to file an application under the same Section 35 of Act 459 for the court to impose the custodial sentence on him.
As of Thursday (October 12, 2023), when he was jailed, Essien had paid only GH¢7 million out of a possible GH¢40 million, missing the instalment payments for April 28 and August 31 this year per the agreement.
In total, Essien had paid GH¢37 million of GH¢90 million, with an amount of GH¢53 million remaining to be paid.