Ato Essien was sentenced to prison for 15 years on Thursday, 12th October, 2023. The court was presided by Judge Eric Kyei Baffour. Let’s take a look at some key statements and words said by the judge before passing his judgement
“The convict demonstrated sheer greed in his desire to own another bank besides Capital Bank Ltd and left no stone unturned through subterfuge and deceit with pure criminal intent to set up Sovereign Bank Ltd.
“Being in a position of trust, he was expected to have demonstrated a sense of responsibility and true fidelity. He had no cause, whatsoever, to steal such gargantuan sums of money,” the presiding judge held.
“I cannot fail to take into account the trail of pain and tears that had been occasioned by the criminal conduct of the convict (Essien). Countless number of innocent citizens lost their jobs and are still job hunting. The nation had to spend huge sums of money to bail the creditors and depositors,” Justice Kyei Baffour ruled
The court jailed the former CEO of defunct Capital Bank, Ato Essien, to a 15 years jail term for failing to settle GH¢90 million cedis he agreed to pay the state despite several lifelines given him.
In May, 2023, the court have Ato Essien two months period month to pay at least ¢20 out of the money due. However, he failed to pay.
Before this Ato Essien was sentenced to prison in December 2022 after pleading guilty in the state under section 35 of the Courts Act to avoid a prison sentence.
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However, he had difficulty paying the debt of GH¢ 90 million imposed on him by the court. According to the agreement, Ato Essien must pay GH¢ 90 million by the end of 2023. He was able to pay GH¢ 30 million in December 2022, with the remainder to be paid in three installments in 2023.
The first payment must be made by the end of April 2023, otherwise he will be put in jail. However, by the end of April, Ato Essien had paid only GH¢ 6 million out of the ¢20 million.
The state requested the court to issue an order to him because the terms of the contract stipulated that a decision would be made against him if he goes contrarily to the payment plan.
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However, Judge Eric Kyei Baffour postponed the hearing of the arbitration application at the request of the arbitrator. Ato Essien’s lawyers argued that an agreement was reached with the company to remove part of the property belonging to their client in order to pay the debt.
However, it was revealed that Ato Essien had only paid an extra GH¢2 million. This brings the total amount of the initial deposit to GH¢ 8 million and the remainder to ¢ 12 million. This means the Ato Essien has paid just ¢38m of the ¢90m debt, leaving ¢52m