The High Court in Accra presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a court of appeal judge, sitting in as a high court judge has declined a two-month request from defence lawyers representing the founder of the defunct Beige Bank, Michael Nyineku to cross-examine the principal State witness of the case.

Michael Nyineku arraigned for charges including stealing and money laundering had pleaded not guilty over the alleged GHc1.2 billion theft.

During the final day of Case Management Conference, on Friday, January 13, Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, one of the judges recently elevated to the Court of Appeal said, the First Prosecution Witness, (Principal Witness) Julius Ayivor, will give an Evidence-in-Chief which could last for 10 minutes.

However, the said witness has attached to his witness statement some 88 exhibits which are crucial to the matter.

Asked by Justice Asare-Botwe, how much time counsel for the accused would need for cross-examination, Lawyer Baffour Gyau Bonsu Ashia, holding brief for Thaddeus Sory, informed the court, they would need two months.

The response appeared to have surprised the Judge, and then asked counsel to put his request into hours.

Counsel after consulting his phone calculator, said he would need a total of 1, 444 hours.

Unhappy, Justice Asare-Botwe wondered if that was a joke from lawyer Bonsu, saying, “I think you don’t know what you are doing so I will give you 12 hours.”

The court said, even if counsel is spending 10 minutes on each exhibit, the time will not exceed 10 hours.

It was the case of counsel that, the 88 exhibits attached to the witness statement are crucial especially should the witness prove evasive.

Justice Asare-Botwe said, the court cannot allow him that luxury of that time and that if he asked relevant questions, the 12 hours should be enough.

Defence counsel contends that for a matter as serious as this, giving the accused person adequate time and facility to examine the witness and possibly put across his defence will serve as a fair hearing.

They believed that 12 hours is not enough for them to defend the accused.

Brief facts

Per the brief facts of the case narrated by Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, Deputy Attorney General, Mr Nyinaku was the former Chief Executive Officer of the Beige Bank and that on August 1, 2018, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) revoked the banking license of Beige Bank and placed it in receivership.

He said a review of the financial and other records of the Bank conducted by the receiver and his team showed several suspicious and unusual transactions, which were subsequently reported to the law enforcement agencies for investigations.

The AG said investigations conducted revealed that between 2015 and 2018, the accused person as CEO of the Bank had allegedly used various means to transfer huge sums of monies to companies related to him and for his personal benefits.

He alleged that the funds transferred were depositors’ funds lodged with the Beige Bank and that between 2017 and 2018, Nyinaku had caused the transfer of GHC10,071.00 fixed deposit account held with Beige Bank in which various customers placed a total of GHC448,636,210.21 to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited, (BCAM), without the knowledge and consent of the customers.

Plot

The AG said BCAM was a limited liability company wholly owned by the Beige Group Limited (Beige Group), an entity which in turn was wholly owned by the accused person, adding that the accused person between 2017 and 2018 caused the transfer of 35 fixed deposit investments of 23 customers of Beige Bank valued GHC141,042,348.92 to the Beige Group, a Company wholly owned by the accused person and its majority shareholders of Beige Bank.

The prosecution said further investigations revealed that in March 2018, the accused person had caused a “fictitious” second account to be opened in the name of First African Savings and Loans (FASL), an existing account holder with Beige Bank, without the knowledge of the board and management of FASL.

The AG said the accused person then caused the transfer of the sum of GHC320 million from the accounts of various Beige Bank customers into the bank accounts of BCAM held with Beige Bank.

The GHC320 million was subsequently transferred from the BCAM account held with the Beige Bank into the “fictitious” FASL account that had been opened in Beige Bank’s books on the instructions of the accused person allegedly, said the prosecution.

It said between March 2018 and August 2018, GHC 21,123,270.96 out of the GHC320 million was transferred from the “fictitious” FASL bank account to some two individuals and ten companies, nine of which were related to Nyinaku, on his instructions.

Email transactions

The AG said again, between 2015 and 2017, the accused person, through the use of payment vouchers, had caused the sum of GHc1,465,000.00 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be paid to himself and other persons, the Court heard.

It said the transactions were recorded in a general ledger account of the bank described as Directors’ account, adding that it came out that the accused person through the use of payment vouchers, emails and memos, had caused a total of GHC20,599,052.58 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be transferred to a number of a general ledger account of the bank described as shareholders’ account.

The AG also said, between 2016 and 2017, the accused, through the use of payment vouchers, had caused a total amount of GHC141,742,087.70 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be transferred to a number of companies and individuals for his benefits allegedly, it said.

It said the transactions were recorded in the general ledger account of the Bank described as Prepayment- a Project Work Account, and that between 2017 and 2018, the accused person using payment vouchers, e-mails, and memo’s had further caused the sum of GHC118,076,813.09 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be transferred to several companies and individuals for his benefit allegedly.

It said the transactions were also recorded in a general ledger account of the bank described as Beige Group Account.

The AG again said investigations had established that the money the accused allegedly dishonestly appropriated from the Beige Bank remained unpaid as of August 1, 2018, when the Bank’s license was revoked by BoG.