A Procurement and Technology Consultant on the Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS) of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) has furnished the High Court with additional statements and expenditures, evidencing projects undertaken by The Beige Group (TBG).
These documents are intended to confirm the work done and provide clarity to the Court in Accra on why the charges against Michael Nyinaku, founder of the defunct Beige Bank, should not stand.
Frederick Frimpong, a former Procurement Officer with BBS—a subsidiary of TBG involved in fleet management, large-scale procurement, and warehousing—stated that even at the time the bank went into receivership, there were many items in stock at the warehouse yet to be distributed.
Mr. Frimpong, the 12th Defence Witness for Mr. Nyinaku in the ongoing Beige Bank case, who was part of a team called the Central Business Support Department (CBS), primarily responsible for procurements, said the CBS was “actively involved in the procurement of a multitude of items that were used in the setting up of these branches.”
“I am aware, and it is a fact, that Beige Capital Savings & Loans undertook numerous branch expansion project works as part of activities marking its transition into becoming The BEIGE Bank,” the Witness told the Court.
In his Witness Statement, adopted by the Court as his evidence-in-chief, the Witness stated, “It is a fact that these branches included branches that existed prior to BCSL obtaining the universal banking license and new ones that were built after BCSL obtained the license.”
He also testified that “all these project works were undertaken and achieved through a collaboration of several departments within TBG, as well as the bank itself.”
The 12th Defence Witness also 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, that “because I was a member of CBS, which was the department with responsibility for procurement activities within TBG, my department was actively involved in the procurement of a multitude of items that were used in the setting up of these branches.”
Mr. Frimpong, currently with the PPA, confirmed that “funding for the activities undertaken by my department came from the finance office of TBG.”
“I can also confirm that the pay vouchers attached to my current statement represent a sample of many such pay vouchers evidencing payments made for several procurement activities undertaken by my department as part of the transitional projects done for the bank.
“I can confirm that the expenditure report submitted by my department, along with its related attachments, were indeed the expenditures that accounted for funds received from TBG to be utilized in executing my department’s scope of work within the projects that were being executed on behalf of the bank. I can further confirm that many of these projects were still ongoing at the time the bank was placed under receivership,” he told the Court.
“I recall that at the time of the receivership, and up until when the office of TBG was closed down, there were many items in stock in the warehouse of BBS that were due to be distributed to branches for which set-up works were ongoing,” he stated.
Mr. Nyinaku, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the defunct bank, has been charged with 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.
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To support his point, the Witness said the new branch set-up work included engagements among the various teams involved in the projects.
He reiterated that “working on the branches and making them ready for occupation by the bank involved the collaboration of many departments within TBG and even the bank itself.
“The work had been scheduled such that each department knew when to finish their work for another department to take over. On many occasions, some departments had to work hand in hand at the same time,” he explained.
“It was our role at CBS, as I have already explained, to mainly procure and distribute items to the various branches.
“We also provided logistics for transporting various members to locations where the projects were taking place.
“To confirm the statements I have just made above, I have attached to my current statement documents marked FF-4, FF-4A, FF-4B, FF-4C, FF-4D, and FF-4E,” he submitted to the Court.
He explained, “These documents are emails providing evidence of several correspondences generated during the course of our work.
“These correspondences were among my department and several other departments, all of whom were playing various roles in the delivery of the projects,” he added.
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Giving a detailed breakdown of the documents marked FF-4, he said it is “an email dated 28th September 2017 between Anthony Ansah [head of CBS] and Okbell Majdoub [head of Service Quality].
In that email, Okbell was requesting that CBS staff go around to collect old blinds that had been removed and replaced in the existing branches of the bank.
“The document marked FF-4A is an email dated 29th September 2017 between Anthony Ansah [head of CBS] and officials of TBG, as well as the bank. In that email, Anthony informed an officer at the CEO’s secretariat that a vehicle had been made available for the transition committee to undertake their work.
“The document marked FF-4B is an email dated 23rd October 2017 between Anthony Ansah [head of CBS] and officials of TBG, as well as the bank. In that email, Anthony informed an officer at the CEO’s secretariat that a vehicle had been made available for the transition committee to undertake their work.
“The document marked FF-4C is an email dated 9th November 2017 between Anthony Ansah [head of CBS] and Freddie Wuddah [head of projects], as well as officials of the bank. In that email, Freddie is requesting Anthony to collect leftover materials from the Atomic Roundabout branch back into storage at CBS.
“The document marked FF-4D is an email dated 10th November 2017 between Anthony Ansah [head of CBS] and the CEO, copied to officials of TBG and the bank. In that email, Anthony is requesting support from finance to transport items required for the set-up of branches in the northern parts of the country.
“The document marked FF-4E is a thread of emails dated from 5th April 2018 to 13th April 2018 between officials of CBS and the Projects departments.
“In those emails, they were discussing the procurement of generators that had been approved for some branches of the bank that were being worked on,” he concluded.
Find below the full Witness Statement of DW 12
