Jailing of Ato Essien: Banks should’ve remained while directors are punished – Prof Gatsi

The Dean of the Business School of the University of Cape Coast, Professor John Gatsi, has said the banks that collapsed during the banking sector clean-up exercise should have been allowed to remain in business while the directors were punished for their actions that led to the troubles of the institutions.

He indicated that it is the duty of the central bank to protect the banks.

Prof Gatsi was commenting on the jailing of the Chief Executive Officer of the defunct Capital Bank William Ato Essien for the role that he played leading to the fold-up of his bank.

It is recalled that the Bank of Ghana issued a press release on August 14, 2017, announcing the revocation of the license of Capital Bank due to insolvency.

UT Bank, Unibank, and Biege Bank also had their license revoked by the central bank during the financial sector clean-up exercise that took place from 2017 to 2019.

The CEO of the Capital Bank Ato Essien was subsequently slapped with a total jail term of 95 years for multiple counts of stealing and money laundering. These sentences are to run concurrently hence, he will be spending 15 years in jail.

Despite reaching an agreement to refund GHC90 million to the state, he only managed to refund GHC37 million to the state, hence the imposition of the custodial sentence.

Asked whether justice has been done in this matter, Prof Gatsi said that “so long as they went through the process of prosecution one would not say justice has not been served.

“But in the scheme of things regarding the bank, the officers of the bank hold fiduciary duties to the bank. In fact, they must act in utmost good faith towards the bank. The bank is a separate legal entity and that is distinct from the officers, so when the officers offend the bank we expect the regulator to come to get the people who offended the bank punished.

“That is separate from the collapse of the bank because the regulator is under a special duty to make sure that the bank lives while those who offend the bank by acting criminally towards the banks are punished.

“So I think that this justice that we are talking about should be directed towards the bank but the bank is no more to experience the justice that has been given to the officer in question.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney-General (A-G), Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has said that the state is prosecuting the directors and owners of the other banks that collapsed.

Speaking on Thursday, October 12, the Deputy Attorney General said “Effectively, he has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. This is a matter that started long ago and last year, he decided to enter into an agreement for him to take advantage of section 35.

“We were expecting that he would go by the agreement that we had but unfortunately on his part, he could not fulfill his part of the bargain. As we speak he has been able to pay close to about 37 million Cedis and because of his inability to pay the rest, per the agreement that we had, the court had the right to sentence him to a prison term and the court just did that.

“I am yet to get the full complement of the orders of the court, now that he has been imprisoned if he gets the money to pay that is another ballgame to look at because after a court has given its ruling or judgment the court becomes functus officio, so my expectation is that when he pays then he goes into mitigation when he wants to appeal the sentence.

“Let’s hope that he gets the money to pay. Let us also add that even if he is going to serve the 15 years Ghanains have also benefited somehow because at least 37 million Cedis has been paid to the state. if he had been sentenced last year we wouldn’t have even recovered this.”

Asked for his response on the other cases and whether or not the state is focused on retrieving the money from those directors too, Mr Tuah-Yeboah said “As we speak we have other cases in court, Beige bank is in court, we are hearing the matter. UT is also in court, we have other banks, like Duffuor’s bank (Unibank) all in court, and we are doing them one after the other.

“If the money that we have lost they are ready to refund the money we will look at section 35 and go by that and we can have the same agreement.

“Our preoccupation is to ensure that justice is done, this can be done either we get the money or if we don’t get we go to the full hog and get the judgment and if they are convicted so be it. So if any of the others facing trial are of the opinion that they want to use section 35, nobody stops them because it is not limited to Ato Essien, it is limited to all other people but we are still prosecuting our cases in court.”