William Ato Essien was recently granted a bail of GH¢10 million
Accra-based medical practitioner, Dr Kwadjo Ayisi-Ahwireng, is challenging the legal and factual basis on which he has been named as a defendant in a case against directors and shareholders of the defunct Capital Bank.
Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng is one of 15 defendants in a civil action for what court documents describe as a “breach of their fiduciary duties” to Capital Bank as directors and shareholders.
In the suit, the official liquidator of the bank is also demanding the repayment of an alleged shareholder loan of about GH¢4.1 million with interest from Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng.
He however insists that he was never a shareholder nor a director of the bank and that he should never have been named as a defendant in the case.
He therefore wants his name to be completely struck out of the case, pointing to the fact that neither the bank of Ghana nor the official liquidator has produced any concrete evidence, apart from what he describes as a “fraudulent” share transfer agreement purportedly between him and the disgraced former Chief Executive of Capital Bank, William Ato Essien.
“I have never sighted nor signed any share transfer agreement for shares [in Capital Bank],” Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng says. “The signature purported to be signed by me indeed looks like my signature but in fact not signed by me. I do not know where they obtained it from, and I say that it was forged and therefore that document is not authentic.”
The impugned agreement allegedly resulted in the transfer of more than 330,000 shares to Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng for five million Ghana Cedis. Whiles Dr. Ayisi-Ahwireng insists that no such agreement exists he also points out that he has never paid any money to anyone, including Ato Essien, for shares in Capital Bank.
“The purported agreement is entirely self-serving for the interest of whoever created it and did not have any input from me. I consider it fake and repudiate it entirely,” Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng says. “When asked for a copy of a receipt issued as evidence of payment for the shares [the official liquidator only] referred to the share transfer agreement [which is being challenged]. It is my case that if the receipt existed it would have been referred to and [presented] as evidence.”
To further make his case, Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng indicated that he has not undergone any of the regulatory checks the Bank of Ghana conducts as a prerequisite for the approval of share transfers or the appointment of bank directors. There are also no records at the Registrar of Companies to confirm the liquidator’s claim that he’s a director or shareholder of the bank, he says.
In addition, Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng insists that he never took any shareholder loan from Capital Bank and there are no records to show that transfers were ever made to him. In fact, he points out, he never even had an account with Capital Bank.
“There is no case against me regarding any loan I took, or monies misappropriated. I therefore do not have anything to answer in this case,” he says.
He laments that his wrongful inclusion in the case, which is still in the preliminary stages before trial after seven years, has caused him a great deal of embarrassment, damage to his commercial interests and trauma to his family.
“The inclusion of my name in the case has occasioned very serious hardship to me, my family and my business, and has terribly tarnished our hard-won reputation for the past [seven] years and still counting with no sign that the case will be tried soon,” he says. “As a medical officer operating and managing an appreciably large private medical facility, my orders for medical supplies from the United States and the United Kingdom are met with all kinds of frustrations arising from issues purporting to relate to my relationship with William Ato Essien and Capital Bank.”
Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng indicated that he only became friends with Ato Essien because he saw the convicted former Capital Bank CEO as “prayerful person and therefore chose to associate with him on that score but had no working relationship with him as far as Capital Bank was concerned.”
In an interview, lawyer for Dr Ayisi-Ahwireng, Kofi Bentil expressed optimism that justice and good reason will prevail, pointing out that what his client is facing should never have been countenanced.
“It is a patent miscarriage of justice that Dr Ayisi-Ahywireng is kept on the list of defendants when the BOG has not proven that he was a shareholder,” Mr. Bentil said.
“They’ve taken the word of a convict who was clearly motivated to hide his shares and avoid liability. It’s unconscionable to do that. They are regulators and it’s their job to see through these and avoid such issues.”
William Ato Essien was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment after he was convicted in 2022 for stealing over GH¢90 million belonging to the bank.
He initially avoided a custodial sentence after the court accepted an agreement he made with the Attorney-General to pay back the GH¢90 million as restitution to the state.
But he only managed to by GH¢47 million back and was imprisoned when it became clear he couldn’t raise the remaining GH¢53 million.
He is currently on bail pending appeal of his conviction.
