Capital Bank CEO, William Ato Essien Bags 15 Years in Prison With Hard Labour

The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana's defunct Capital Bank, Willian Ato Essien, has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with hard labour. This ruling was issued by the Accra High Court, which was presided over by Justice Kyei Baffour, a Court of Appeal Judge sitting as an additional High Court Judge, on Thursday, October 12, 2023.

Essien's sentence comes after the banker failed to refund GH¢90 million to the state as directed by the court. 

According to the High Court judgment, Essien was to pay GH¢20 million of the GH¢60 million in restitution on or before April 28, 2023, and complete the rest by the end of December 2023.

It will be recalled that the CEO of Capital Bank was convicted after pleading guilty and signing a deal with the state under Section 35 of the Courts Act.

Section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459) allows any individual who pleads guilty to pay restitution to the state based on financial misappropriation.

This sentence was given to prevent Essien from going to prison, but he defaulted on the order and was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment coupled with hard labour.

See the full sentence here.

The Background of the Issue

Ato Essien, Fitzgerald Odonkor, and the MD of MC Management Services, and Tettey Nettey, are the three accused of the misappropriation of funds given to them by the BoG.

State Prosecutors accused William Aton Essien of causing the bank's insolvency by stealing over GH¢200 million from the GH¢620 million in liquidity support given to Capital Bank by the Bank of Ghana.

With assistance from Fitzgerald Odonkor, Essien was said to have transferred GH¢120 million of liquidity support to All Time Capital Limited, an investment management and advisory firm.

Also, Dr Nettey was accused of helping two officials of Capital Bank to transfer the sum of GH¢130 million of the bank's fund to set up Sovereign Bank.

According to the ruling of the court in November 2022, Mr Essien was charged with eight counts of stealing, eight counts of money laundering, and three counts of conspiracy to steal, making it a total of 19 counts.

However, Ato Essien was discharged on three counts of the charges, leaving him with 16 counts against him.

The MD of Management Services, Tetteh Nettey, also faced two counts of money laundering, two counts of stealing, and two counts of conspiracy to steal, bringing his total count to six counts.

The Managing Director of Capital Bank, Fitzgerald Odonkor was charged with seven counts of abetment of crime, namely stealing.

The state estimates that the accused persons have misappropriated GHC 262,500,000.00.

The three persons were accused of engaging in various illegal acts that led to the misappropriation of the sum of GH¢620 million in liquidity support given to Capital Bank by the Bank of Ghana between June 2015 and November 2016.

However, the accused person pleaded not guilty to various allegations revolving around abetment of stealing, money laundering, and conspiracy to steal. 

They maintained their innocence throughout the trial, with Ato Essien maintaining at all material moments that he had board approval for all the actions he took.