Unibank Trial: Financial reports are produced by Management not any single individual - Receiver

Nii Amanor Dodoo, the Receiver of Unibank, has explained that financial reports were produced by the Management team of Unibank and not by anyone in a sole capacity.

He said Benjamin Ofori, a former Executive Head of the Credit Risk Department of Unibank, in his sole capacity, did not submit any such report directly to the Bank of Ghana, he did this as part of the Management team of Unibank.

The Receiver was answering questions in a cross-examination by lawyers for Benjamin Ofori, a former Executive Head of Credit Risk of Unibank.

The accused persons in this matter have been charged with fraudulent breach of trust, money laundering, dishonest appropriation, wilfully causing financial loss to the Republic, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

At the time the license of Unibank was revoked, it was discovered that an amount of 5.7 billion cedis had been dishonestly appropriated by the shareholders with the connivance and assistance of some of the accused persons.

The Receiver admitted that the financial reports of Unibank submitted to BoG went through Unibank’s internal processes.

He explained further that misreporting did not only involve communicating a false situation but also involved being part of the process of falsifying reality.

He said the matters that were misreported to

BoG were the fictitious loans, the fictitious income generated because of those fictitious loans, and the amounts siphoned out of Unibank by the shareholders.

The Receiver affirmed that Ofori played a critical role in all these and that he in generating the fictitious loans and the fictitious income, knew it would form part of the financial reports to be submitted to the Central Bank and other stakeholders.

Nii Dodoo said other accused persons played vital roles in misreporting the amounts siphoned by the shareholders of Unibank.

He informed the Court that Ofori played a key role in opening fictitious accounts and assisted with memos that resulted in the creation of fictitious loans.

He said between 2016 and 2018, Ofori was the Executive Head of Credit Risk at Unibank, and as far as loan approval processes were

concerned, Ofori had the responsibility of assessing the credit risks of loan applicants and making recommendations.

The Receiver had earlier testified that fictitious loans of more than GHS 1 billion were created in the names of identified customers of the bank.

The funds credited were subsequently debited by Madam Elsie Dansoa Kyere, the then Head of Corporate Banking, and Ofori, a former Executive Head of Credit Risk at Unibank.

He had also testified that these fictitious loans were created based on memos generated by Madam Dansoa Kyere and Jeffrey Amon and Ofori.

The Receiver reiterated his earlier testimony that Dr. Kwabena Duffuor II, Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis, Madam Dansoa Kyere, Amon, and Ofori decided to misreport the true financial position of Unibank in their reports to the Bank of Ghana and in the financial

statements Unibank produced.

Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, Counsel for Ofori referred the Receiver to a memorandum dated November 30, 2016, which, according to the Receiver, formed the basis on which a purported loan of GH₵ 14 million was disbursed to Fuzak Construction.

Nii Dodoo said the account to which the funds were disbursed was not the regular account of Fuzak Construction but a fictitious one.

“The said amount of GH₵ 14 million was subsequently transferred to the shareholders’ account,” he added.

He explained that an irregular loan may be a loan approved by a person beyond his approval limits.

He said that if a person intentionally included a fictitious account number and presented a memo seeking approval as if it were a regular thing, that loan could not be described as regular.

The Receiver admitted that the memo of November 30, 2016, had an inscription “subject to the terms and conditions stated in the individual letters” by Ofori.

He explained that the said inscription was made by Ofori to give the impression that those fictitious loans were regular.

“Though Mr Ofori did not approve loans, he was expected to ensure memos channeled through him contained accurate facts,” he added.

He said Ofori was also expected to confirm that the account numbers in the memos were the regular account numbers of the customers listed in those memos.