Former Venture Capital CEO found guilty of causing financial loss to the state

The Accra High Court has convicted three former senior executives of the Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), have been convicted for causing financial loss to the state.

The three; former Chief Executive Officer of VCTF, Daniel Duku; his executive assistant, Irene Anti Mensah and her husband, Frank Aboagye Mensah.

The three, are to pay a restitution of about GH₵18.5million to the state within three months, the court presided over by Justice Anthony Oppong ordered.

The restitution followed an agreement they had with the Attorney General per section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459).

The three, had pleaded guilty to 42 charges that was levelled against them.

The court had earlier rejected the restitution agreement and ordered the trial to commence.

However, the three accused persons filed a review of that decision and at Friday’s hearing, the court agreed to the restitution agreement.

Per the agreement as enforced by the court, Duku must pay GH₵15million and $26,063 to the state.

The court also imposed a fine of GH₵500,000 on Duku, while all the assets he acquired during his tenure as CEO of Venture Capital Trust (2010-2015) have been confiscated.

The properties include five vehicles; (including a Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Panamera), six apartments of three bedrooms each at Georgetown Heights and the eight buildings at the Agyekum Presidential Villa at Adjiringano.

Irene Anti Mensah, would have to pay GH₵1.5million. The court also imposed a fine of GH₵100,000 on her.

For Frank Aboagye Mensah, he is to pay GH₵1,195,000 and also a fine of GH₵100,000.

The payments are to made within three months from Friday, July 10, 2020.

Per Section 35 of Act 459, if the convicts refuse to pay the restitution within the stipulated period, the court will impose a custodial sentence on them.

Background

Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF) was established in 2004 by the Venture Capital Trust Fund Act, 2004, Act 680 to provide financial support to small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) through eligible venture capital financing companies.

The 1st accused person, Daniel Duku, was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of VCTF between 2010 and 2015.

The 2nd accused person, Richard Lassey Agbenyefia, was a former Member of Parliament and a former member of the Board of Trustees of VCTF (the Board).

The 3rd accused person, Irene Anti-Mensah, who doubled as the Executive Assistant to the 1st accused person, was an Investment Officer of VCTF.

The 4th accused person, Kofi Sarpong, was an investment officer of VCTF.

The 5th accused person, Frank Aboagye Mensah, is a businessman and the husband of the 3rd accused person.

The 6th accused person, Charity Opoku, also known as Charity Ameyaw was an accountant at VCTF.

According to the fact sheet presented to the court, as CEO of VCTF, the first accused facilitated the recruitment of the 3rd and 4th accused persons, who were his work colleagues at the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority (GIPA) to join him at VCTF, as his Executive Assistant and Investment Officer respectively.

Upon assumption of office, the 1st accused person introduced a loan scheme named Development Assistance Fund (DAF) to provide credit directly to individuals and companies in clear contravention of the VCTF Act and contrary to the objects of VCTF.

Despite the advice of solicitors of VCTF on the illegality of the proposed loan scheme, the 1st accused person managed to obtain the approval of the Board for the establishment of the DAF scheme.

The 1st accused person, by approval of the Board, could only approve loans not exceeding GH¢30,000. Any loan amounts above GH¢30,000 was subject to Board approval. The Board also approved strict guidelines under which the loans were to be disbursed.

An amount of GH₵1,000,000, which was later increased to GH₵2,000,000 was approved by the Board as a revolving fund for the DAF project.

Investigations have revealed that the 1st accused person disbursed various sums of money under the scheme, the total of which far exceeded the approved amount of GH₵ 2,000,000.

Prior to the appointment of 1st accused as CEO and the establishment of DAF, VCTF operated an existing scheme which gave loans to farmers in the Northern and Brong Ahafo Regions for the cultivation of sorghum.

This loan scheme known as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) gave loans to certain Venture Capital Finance Companies (VCFC) namely SINAPI ABA and Techno Serve Company Limited for onward lending to farmers. The SPV had a minimum of GH₵50,000 and GH₵500,000 as the maximum amount that could be disbursed at a time to the Venture Capital Finance Companies”.

“This program ran successfully until the 1st accused assumed leadership in June 2010 when the project stopped. However, in or about October 2010, the SPV was reintroduced at the instance of the 1st accused (albeit with Board approval) this time to be controlled directly from the office of the 1st accused. 1st accused could however only approve loans up to GH₵ 50,000.

Any loan amounts above the GH₵50,000 threshold required Board approval contrary to and in flagrant disregard of the approved Board thresholds for the CEO, the 1st accused person persistently approved loans purportedly under DAF and SPV well above his threshold directly to a number of companies, some of which were non-existent.

Some of these fictitious companies bore addresses, which belonged to the 1st accused. The accused persons used the names of a number of companies belonging to other persons to obtain loans without the knowledge, permission and or consent of the owners of the companies”.

The 6th accused who was at all material times the accountant at VCTF and a signatory to the VCTF account aided the 1st accused by signing blank cheques to grant loans to some of these companies while on leave.

Some of the cheques were issued even before the purported applications for the loans were received. The 1st accused, using these blank cheques signed by the 6th accused, granted loans totalling GH¢4,240,000 which resulted in a total loss of GH¢12,601,796.25 being principal and accrued interest to the Fund.

Upon realising the financial challenges facing the Fund in its sustainability, the Board instructed the 1st accused in 2013 to stop the disbursement of loans under the DAF scheme and to rather concentrate on recoveries.

However, the 1st accused misled the Board by reporting that he had recovered 81% of the outstanding loans under DAF when he knew that to be false and consequently obtained the Board’s approval to resume disbursements under the DAF scheme.

At the request of the 1st accused, the Board relying on the false report of the 1st accused person increased the DAF Fund from GH¢1,500,000 to GH¢2,000,000”.

Again, in January 2015, the Board instructed the 1st accused to completely stop the disbursement of loans and focus on the recovery of loans already disbursed. These instructions were ignored by the 1st accused who authorized the disbursement of more loans without the knowledge or authority of the Board.

In June 2015, even though the appointment of the 1st accused had been terminated, he remained in office until September 2015 during which period he disbursed some more loans to companies some of which belonged to his official driver and some cronies.

During the period, the 1st accused obtained an amount of Twenty-Six thousand and Sixty-Three dollars ($26,063) to attend an official programme in the United States of America. Even though the 1st accused did not attend the programme he failed to pay the money to chest and dishonestly appropriated the entire amount”.

The Board on realizing that the 1st accused did not attend the programme, directed him to refund the Twenty-Six Thousand and Sixty-Three dollars ($26,063) to VCTF in response to which directive the 1st accused issued false cheques to VCTF, which were dishonoured upon presentation at the bank.

The 2nd accused person too obtained loans in the names of companies based on false representations to VCTF without the knowledge, permission or approval of the owners of the companies whereas in other instances the loans were obtained in the names of non-existent companies.

The 3rd and 4th accused persons, who were responsible for evaluation and processing of loan applications to VCTF, failed to conduct the requisite due diligence on loan applicants but instead facilitated the grant of loans through falsified records by entering false information on the loan application forms”.

It has been established that the 5th accused person used non-existent companies to obtain loans from VCTF and acted together with 1st, 3rd and 4th accused persons to dishonestly appropriate various sums of money from VCTF in the names of these companies.

Evidence will show that these and other acts of the accused persons have resulted in the loss of over GH¢42,856,470.21 to the Republic.