Beige Bank case: No payments were made to accused – 5th Defense Witness to Court

The former Finance Manager of Beige Care Health Insurance Scheme Limited, a subsidiary under the Beige Group, Emmanuel Anyedina, has told the High Court that, “there were no payments” made to the founder of defunct Beige Bank, Michael Nyinaku.

This is in direct response to the prosecution’s claims that two separate payments GH¢330,000 and GH¢62,000, were taken from First Africa Savings and Loans to Beige Care on the instructions of the accused which were used by Beige Care for its office operations.

Mr. Nyinaku, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the defunct bank has been charged for allegedly 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.

Testifying as the 5th Defense Witness for Michael Nyinaku, the former Finance Manager said, the accused did not receive any funds from Beige Care nor any benefits from the transactions undertaken by Beige Care.

“Based on the documents I have attached and marked EA 4, EA 4A, and EA 5, there is no doubt that the funds transferred to Beige Care were used by the company itself.

“The bank statement provides a clear record of how the funds were utilized, including the payees and their purposes,” the Witness Stated in his Witness Statement which was adopted by the Court as his Evidence-in-Chief.

The Witness, who is also an Accountant by profession, added, “It is noteworthy that there were no payments made to the accused person.”

“As a result, to the best of my knowledge, the accused did not receive any funds from Beige Care nor any benefits from the transactions undertaken by Beige Care,” he told the Court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court judge.

Events following the Receivership

It was the testimony of the Defense Witness that, following the receivership of the bank, “the bank accounts of Beige Care were frozen by the Receiver of the bank.”

He added that “this action significantly affected our operations,” and “Several attempts to get this resolved were not successful.”

The 5th Defense Witness said, “Eventually, we had to downsize our operations significantly as we were no longer receiving working capital from TBG (The Beige Bank).”

He told the Court that, the accused, “met the leadership of Beige Care in August or thereabout 2018 and started proceedings to voluntarily wind up Beige Care operations, and by December 2018, the list of creditors and accounts receivable from Beige Care was completed.”

New bills

“Between January 2019 and December 2020, new bills were received from healthcare providers, and the list of creditors including accrued staff salaries, statutory deductions, and tax obligations were updated and sent to National Health Insurance (NHIA) for further action geared towards the settlement of creditors and the final dissolution of the company.

“I wish to state that during this period, I continued to offer assistance to TBG by providing and updating information about Beige Care.

“Occasionally some of my colleagues would also come in to help provide information for use by TBG.

“We all did so in the capacity of unpaid consultants as our interest was in the hope that our unpaid salaries would eventually be settled.

“When it became evident that court proceedings initiated against the CEO of the Beige Group would not result in the payment of creditors of Beige Care including unpaid staff anytime soon, all of us abandoned the process,” the Witness told the Court.

The 5th Defense Witness who was led by Counsel for the Accused, Thaddeus Sory to give his evidence in Chief, has been discharged after State Prosecutors led by Mrs. Evelyn Keelson, cross-examined him.

Justice Afia Asare-Botwe has since adjourned the case to May 22, for the next witness to be called.

Find attached the Cross Examination of DW5