Mrs Evelyn Keelson, Chief State Attorney (CSA), the prosecution in the ongoing trial of the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Beige-Bank, has challenged Mr Hafisdeen M. Dawda, former Chief Financial Officer of the Bank’s defense witness that the Beige Bank disobeyed the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
The CSA in cross-examination, said Beige Bank was afraid that writing off its investments would expose the true state of the Bank due to the depletion of investments.
“As of July 2018, the BoG directed you to write off the investment. You knew you had lost the value of those investments, yet you sought to deceive BoG by giving a false picture of the Bank in your witness statement,” the prosecution put it to the defense witness.
The defense witness denied it and said it was not meant to deceive the BoG because when it came for examination, the issue was laid bare to the receiver hence the recommendation that it should be written off.
Mrs Keelson, the CSA said ” from exhibit AB, GHC66m was transferred on approval of the accused person – Nyinaku, to Beige Group from Essien Swiss, Express Savings and Loans, Royal Bank New Life, Stanbic Bank, Unibank, among others”.
The witness debunked it and said it did not mean more money to the Beige Group.
She said the transfer of its investments to some financial institutions led to the total loss of investments, but the witness disagreed.
The prosecution said there were conflicting reports presented to BoG and the Attorney General, adding that BoG’s reviewed report in July 2018 all showed that the Bank was insolvent and had reached a stage where it could not honour depositors’ withdrawals.
The Chief State Attorney explained that it got to a stage that the Bank had no assets of liabilities and could not honour depositors’ withdrawals, however, the former Chief Financial Officer disagreed and said the Bank had a lot of assets and liabilities, stressing that BoG’s report indicated that liabilities had exceeded the assets and that it had a negative net asset.
He insisted that BoG’s report was its observation after it had conducted examination and from 2012 to 2016, reiterating that BoG did not give Beige Bank the opportunity to respond and the report rendered it insolvent before it responded.
Mrs Keelson said before the Bank’s revocation on July 30, 2018, it had made an emergency call on BoG to rescue it from the situation.
Responding to that, Mr Dawda said the clearing support given by BoG was not insolvency by liquidity, noting that the banking laws allowed banks in situations they had liquidity challenges to fall on the BoG for support and that was different from being considered as insolvent because insolvency went to the long term survival of the business and may mean that the institution had persistently recorded negative net worth.
Nyinaku has been charged with theft and money laundering, but he has denied.
The High Court presided over by Justice Mrs Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe, a Court of Appeal Judge with additional responsibility at the High Court, granted him bail.
