Banking clean-up: Pay-in slips used to siphon funds from Unibank were fictitious - Receiver

Nii Amanor Dodoo, the Receiver of the defunct Unibank Limited has disclosed that an amount of GH¢13,100,000 was credited to the account of one Maripoma Limited as part of efforts to siphon funds.

According to him, crediting of the account in the banking software of Unibank was done by one Mr R. Mensah, a teller at the World Trade Centre branch of Unibank.

Nii Dodoo made this known when he was answering questions in a cross-examination by lawyers for Mr Jeffery Amon, a former Relationship Manager of Corporate Banking of Unibank Limited.

The accused persons in the Unibank Limited matter have been charged with fraudulent breach of trust, money laundering, dishonest appropriation, willfully causing financial loss to the Republic and conspiracy to commit crime.

At the time that the license of Unibank Limited was revoked, it was discovered that an amount of GH¢5.7 billion had been dishonestly appropriated by the shareholders with the connivance and assistance of some of the accused persons.

He said a total amount of GH¢56,295,000 was debited from the bank’s interbranch ledger account.

This ledger account, according to the Receiver, was a general ledger account.

Nii Dodoo said various entries were passed into the account particularly those based on petty cash vouchers and pay-in slips that were used to siphon funds out of Unibank.

"Some of the petty cash vouchers used to siphon out the GH¢56,295,000 were signed by Mr Paul Appiah Gyasi, Mr William Coleman and Mr Benjamin Ofori, all officers of the bank," the Receiver added.

He said the entries were passed by Mr Elijah Benson and other officers of the bank based on vouchers presented to them adding that these funds were siphoned out for the benefit of the shareholders.

The Receiver described the pay-in slips based on which funds were siphoned from Unibank as fictitious because there was no evidence of physical cash receipts of those amounts in the books of Unibank.

He said in most cases, when entries were passed in the banking software application of Unibank, a Senior Officer of the bank had to authorise the transaction passed but in this case, this was not the case.

Meanwhile the trial was adjourned to May 17, 2023 for continuation of cross-examination.

MA