UniBank case: Receiver granted permission by Apex Court to testify in criminal trial

The Receiver of defunct UniBank Limited, Nii Amanoo Dodoo has been granted permission by the Supreme Court to testify in the criminal trial involving Dr Kwabena Duffuor, founder of the bank and other officials charged in the matter.

The development comes after lawyers for Dr Duffuor had prayed the court to disallow the Receiver who is the State’s first witness from testifying in the case brought against the bank’s founder and others.

According to a report on myjoyonline.com, the lawyers had earlier argued that Nii Amanoo Dodoo had breached sections of the Banks and Specialized Deposit Act, 2016 when the bank was made insolvent and handed over to the Receiver.

Although the State opposed the objection from Dr Duffour’s lawyers, Director of Public Prosecution, Yvonne Attakora Obuobisa admitted that Mr. Nii Amanoo Dodoo previously served as a partner at KPMG Ghana.

Yvonne Obuobisa however maintained that the Receiver’s appointment was rather lawful and met the requisite requirement to testify and urged the court dismiss the objection by Dr Duffuor’s lawyers.

The Court of Appeal, hearing the matter by Justice Bright Mensah who is also hearing the matter as an additional High Court judge dismissed the objection and upheld the Director of Public Prosecution’s arguments.

The Judge stated that Section 59 of the Evidence Act explains who is not qualified to testify and therefore includes persons who are incapables of coherent expression so as to be understood, directly or through interpretation by another person who can understand that person; or incapable of understanding the duty of a witness to tell the truth.

Following this, Mr Nii Amanoo Dodoo was allowed to take the oath and proceeded to testify in the matter involving Dr Duffuor and other officials of the defunct bank.

This however did not sit well with the lawyers of Dr Duffuor as they took the matter to the Court of Appeal where it later affirmed the High Court decision leading to a further appeal to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, on May 3, 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal decision by a majority 3-2 decision.

The verdict was delivered after Justices Paul Baffoe Bonnie, Professor Mensah Bonsu and Samuel Asiedu made up the majority while Justices Gabriel Pwamang and Amadu Tanko dissented.

Since the collapse of the UniBank Limited, its founder Dr Kwabena Duffuor and eight others are facing a total of 71 charges for their respective roles which led to the collapse of the financial institution following the clean-up exercise undertaken by the Bank of Ghana.

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