The Commercial Division of the Accra High Court has ordered the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department to serve former Managing Director of UT Bank, Prince Kofi Amoabeng, and four others who are standing trial for the collapse of UT Bank with all the documents it intends to rely on for their trial.
Justice Philip Bright Mensah , a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as a High Court judge, gave the A-G up to June 22, to file the disclosures and serve same on the defence team.
In court on Thursday, Chief State Attorney, Frances Mullen Ansah, indicated to the court that the initial return date of the case was June 23, 2020, but they had a notice that the time had been abridged to today.
She, however, told the court that they were working to have the trial documents filed and served on the accused persons with the June 23 date in mind.
The court, after listening to the prosecution, ordered the AG’s Department to file all the necessary trial documents it would rely on in this trial by June 22 and serve same on the defence lawyers.
The case has been adjourned to June 25, 2020.
*Background*
Five persons have been hauled before the court for the collapse of UT Bank.
They are Dr Johnson Paundit Asiama, a Deputy BoG Governor, Prince Kofi Amoabeng, the Founder of UT Bank; Raymond Amanfu, a former Head of the Banking Supervision Department (BSD) of the BoG, and two others — Catherine Johnson, Head of Treasury, and Robert Kwesi Armah, the General Manager of Corporate Banking, both of UT Bank.
UT Holdings, the parent company of UT Bank, which is said to be controlled by Amoabeng, was also charged with the collapse of the bank.
It is the case of the A-G that Amoabeng “dishonestly appropriated “more than GH¢100 million of depositors’ funds that were invested in the defunct UT Bank.
The A-G has accused Dr Asiama and Amanfu of also acting unlawfully and causing financial loss to the state.
The two have been charged with wilfully causing financial loss to the state for allegedly approving GH¢460 million in liquidity support, “without following prescribed mandatory conditions”.
“No payment was made for liquid support by the BoG,” the A-G stated in the facts accompanying the charge sheet.
The accused persons in that case have also pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
