Banking sector clean up: Pay in slips used to siphon funds from uniBank fictitious- Receiver

The Receiver of the defunct uniBank, Nii Amanor Dodoo, has stated that an amount of ¢13,100,000 (¢13 million) was credited to the account of Maripoma Limited in the banking software of the collapsed bank.

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

Nii Dodoo was answering questions in a cross-examination by lawyers for Jeffery Amon, a former Relationship Manager of Corporate Banking of uniBank.

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

At the time the license of uniBank was revoked, it was discovered that an amount of ¢5.7 billion had been dishonestly appropriated by the shareholders with the connivance and assistance of some of the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

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 ¢56,295,000 were signed by Mr Paul Appiah Gyasi, Mr William Coleman and Mr. Benjamin Ofori, all officers of the bank,” he added.

He said 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.