uniBank case: What the State presented to court against accused persons

The nine persons standing trial for the alleged GHC5.7 billion loss which collapsed uniBank in August 2018 have been slapped with 68 charges by the Attorney-General (AG).

The charges range from fraudulent transactions to money laundering.

After 17 years of operations, uniBank, a private commercial bank was declared insolvent.

It was founded by a former Finance Minister and former governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Kwabena Duffuor.

Aside uniBank, Dr. Duffuor had a number of companies. He is the Founder and Chairman of HODA Holdings, a business entity which comprises insurance, banking, real estate, farming, mining, and media subsidiaries.

The AG in presenting the facts of the case to a court in Accra gave details of the role each of the nine persons standing trial played.

CEO Kwabena Duffuor II and Chief Operating Officer, Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis

• The two withdrew GH¢613 million from uniBank. Some of these monies were for depositors, some came from the Bank of Ghana. They used various means, including petty cash vouchers and cash pay-in slips to take out the money.

• In April 216, they allegedly splashed these monies into businesses connected to the Duffuor family such as HODA Properties, Numa Logistics, Integrated Properties, Topp Recruitment, and Bolton Portfolio.

• They also allegedly used some GH¢35m of uniBank money to buy GOIL shares on behalf of Starmount, a company related to the bank.

Dr. Kwabena Duffuor and HODA Holdings

• Dr. Duffuor, who sits atop HODA Holdings, a group of family-owned businesses, allegedly received the GH¢663.2m brought in by his son and the COO, Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis.

• Dr. Duffuor and HODA Holdings allegedly received the GH¢35m cedis and the GH¢74m used to buy GOIL shares for Starmount and also fund the two other businesses.

Johnson Pandit Asiama, former deputy governor at the Bank of Ghana

• In September 2016, he unlawfully served uniBank’s interest by approving GH¢300 million facility to Universal Merchant Bank Limited (UMB). This approval came despite [Asiamah] knowing fully well that uniBank would not be able to pay back the money. This is because the bank already was struggling to pay back GH¢850m it had already taken from BoG between December 2015 and June 2016.

Elsie Dansoa Kyereh (Executive Head of Corporate Banking), Jefferey Amon a Senior Relationship Manager of Corporate Banking), Benjamin Ofori (Executive Head of Credit Risk)

• They, together with Kwabena Dufuor II and Ekow Dadzie-Dennis, created 31 fictitious loans amounting to more than GH¢1billion. None of the names used for the loans existed or applied for the facility. This was not reported to the BoG, but pushed into an account where uniBank debts were stashed. They called it the Deferred Expenditure Account (DEA).

Kwadwo Opoku Okoh (Financial Control Manager of uniBank and Head of Finance of HODA)

• Between November 2013 and February 2014, he allegedly acted with Dufuor Jnr and Dadzie-Dennis to allegedly take about $9.5m to buy shares in WAICA-Re, a multinational insurance company.

• The shares were to be bought in the name of companies within the Duffuor family business, such as Telemedia Communications (Telemedia), Crown Insurance Brokers (Crown Insurance), uniCredit Ghana Limited, HODA, uniBank, uniSecurities Ghana Limited and Dr. Kwabena Dufuor.

• Although the monies were taken in the name of these persons and companies, investigators found, five of them – Telemedia, Crown Insurance, uniCredit, uniSecurities, and Dr Duffuor still had no shares.

Read below the full facts as presented by the AG