Beige Bank case: Defense lawyers confront State witness on documents of payments to customers

Defense lawyers in the ongoing case in which the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Beige Bank Michael Nyinaku is standing trial have confronted State Witness on his documents showing payments to some customers whose funds were allegedly siphoned.

Michael Nyinaku, has been accused of allegedly siphoning customers funds and has been charged for stealing GH¢2.1 billion of depositors’ money from the bank.

He has since pleaded not guilty to 43 charges including stealing, fraudulent breach of trust and money laundering and has been granted bail.

Mr Julius Ayivor, a Chartered Accountant with the KPMG, a financial auditing firm and a team member of the Receiver of the Beige Bank had testified as the First Prosecution Witness and is facing scrutiny.

While punching holes into his earlier testimony which he the witness had deposed to in his witness statement adopted by the court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, counsel said the witness had not justified to the court with documentation to back his claims that the accused had siphoned customers’ funds.

The witness was confronted on his own documents in which he told the court on February 17 that he had furnished the accused with on a pen drive which contains statements of account of Beige Capital Asserts Management (BCAM) and funds standing to the credit of customers.

He also told the court that these statements of account he provided the accused and the court will show funds standing to the credit of the customers with the bank and were transferred to BCAM without their consent.

But, counsel pointed out that, such was not the case and with particular reference to a customer by name Emmanuel Kpobi, counsel said documents dated July 7, 2017 showed that the account of BCAM was debited and credited to the account of the said Emmanuel Kpobi.

Mr Ayivor in his response agreed and said, “I can confirmed that there is a debit of account control described as Cheque withdrawal of Emmanuel Kpobi.”

Counsel then said a further debit of BCAM account on July 21, 2017 of GH¢10,000 was credited to the same customer.

But the witness explained that there was Control account and Mobilization account and that all the account on the siphoned monies were on the folder labeled mobilization account. When asked if he had put before the court any document to justify the payments of over GH¢30,000 to BCAM, the witness answered in the negative.

The witness said “as I stated earlier BCAM is also a licensed financial institution and it has its own customers.”

Lawyer Thaddeus Sory, then put to the witness that, the sum total of his explanation regardless, did not reflect the payment of the GH¢30,000 including Michael Oduro which he cannot justify with documentation.

But, the witness point to Exhibit 9 (statement of account customers and BCAM) as the documents on the pen drive submitted to the court.

When counsel again confronted him with a follow up question that, exhibit 9 did not show any records of the payment of the GHc30k, the witness said “No my Lady.”

Again with particular reference to a customer Number 44 referred to as Christ the King, counsel said, the witness’ Exhibit AB1 alleged that GH¢1,674 was debited from Christ the King and was credited to BCAM.

The Witness agreed but explained that, that transaction reflected on BCAM mobilization account of page 42 or 86.

Counsel said the statement of account of exhibits 9 on November 2, 2017, an amount of GH¢5,202 was transferred from BCAM to Christ the King from the account of BCAM.

The Witness agreed and said “that was so” and transaction was indeed credited in favour of Christ the King. When it was put to him that, from Exhibit 9, “there is no other transactions that can justify the transfer of the sum of over GH¢5,202 from BCAM to Christ the King,” the witness offered explanation

He said there need not to be any document to show that payment on November 2, 2017 and told the court that the Christ the King transactions were accounted for.

Counsel said the fact that he cannot explain from any records that he had put before the court the basis upon which the sum of over GH¢5,202 was paid to Christ the King makes the records for the payment justifiable only by reference to the transaction that resulted in the transfer of the GH¢1,674 to BCAM from Christ the King.

While disagreeing with counsel, the witness said the two transactions are separate and distinct from the GHc1,674 siphoned from the GH¢5,202 paid in favour of Christ the King.

Counsel put to him that for each payment he had described as separate and distinct he could not justify it with the documents, but the Witness said, “I have justified how the GH¢1,674 was transferred from Christ the King account into the BCAM mobilization account and GH¢5,202, debited BCAM into the control account has nothing to do with the GH¢1,674 siphoned.”

Counsel said based on his own Exhibit 9 and AB1, his testimonies confirmed that there was a relationship between the Beige Bank and BCAM on the basis of which customers funds were invested in BCAM and BCAM made payments to those customers.

The witness disagreed saying “there was absolutely no relationship between the bank anss BCAM...There was no agreement between the bank and BCAM...there was no board agreement or resolution so there was no such relationship.”

Shown a document marked as Exhibit AA and an email dated July 17, 2017 written by a certain Stephen Duah Agyemang to the accused, the witness identified.

Counsel said the email from the said Stephen Duah Agyemang was seeking approval for the transfer of $200, 000, this the witness admitted and said he sought approval to releases $200,000 dollars to accused and that approval was sought from accused.

Counsel said it was clear that the accused just approved as requested but the witness agreed that, exhibit AA1 showed the accused person’s approval and exhibit AA showed the movement of the GH¢200,000 to accused office

Counsel said Exhibit AA only indicates the name of the person who received the amount, the person who received the amount among others, which the witness admitted.

He added that, it also indicate where the money was coming from and to where the money went to.

It was the case of counsel that, Exhibit AA, was in two parts and the first part was a memo showing what was to be done in term of evaluation of funds and the second part was the acknowledgment of receipt of funds

But the witness said that was not entirely so, explaining that on the same first part there is also evidence of the receiving officer who acknowledged the receipt of the amount.

When counsel put to him that the actual acknowledgment was from the memo which was generated, but the witness said it was separated.

Mr Sory said, some of the customers deliberately claimed that they did not know their funds were invested with BCAM because the government had made a declaration that it was going to pay all depositors funds and they wanted to take advantage of that.

But, the witness disagreed.

The hearing continues on April 3, 2023.