By Gifty Amofa
Accra, March 20, GNA-Mr Thaddeus Sory, Counsel for Michael Nyinaku, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of defunct Beige Bank, has told the High Court that the star witness’ exhibit is not credible.
Mr Sory said this when Cross-examining Mr Julius Ayivor, Prosecution’s main Witness.
“I am putting it to you that the only reason you could find two customers as between exhibit H18 and AB1 out of the over 200 customers of the bank who were alleged to have had funds with the bank transfer to Beige Capital and Asset Management (BCAM) on the same day, April 18, 2018 is because exhibit AB1 is not credible.”
“That is not so. Exhibit AB1 is very credible because information contained on exhibit AB1 was extracted from the Beige Bank and it’s very credible,” the witness replied.
On a writ of summons filed by the Receiver against the Nyinaku, the accused person, witness was asked whether he had seen the heading: “the liability of BCAM to the bank,” but witness said the thought that was the heading since it did not state the liability of BCAM alone but both the accused person’s liability and BCAM.
Looking at exhibit 4, did you realise the receiver dealt with several other incomes of BCAM and described them as investments, counsel probed.
Witness in his answer said the receiver made reference to series of other transactions where the accused person instructed and supervised the transfer of over 10,000 deposits totally in excess GHS480 million to BCAM, adding that the investment in that exhibit were totally and wholly different from the funds that were siphoned out of the accounts of the 10,000 plus affected customers.
He asked if witness could point out the names of those customers whose funds were transferred to First Africa Savings and Loans (FASL) and witness answered in the negative.
He explained that was because the funds were not siphoned from their accounts directly but noted that he could trace the specific customers’ funds which were transferred to FASL.
“Your exhibit Bidvest was fully paid its investment funds, yet its name appeared as if fund paid out was government bailout.” Mr Sory asked, and Mr Ayivor said the GHS3million siphoned out of Bidvest account was part of funds that had to be provided to settle affected customers.
He said the defunct bank robbed Peter to pay Paul in that there were specific deposits that were siphoned from Beige Bank to BCAM and later to FASL account, explaining that those customers were robbed to pay Bidvest (which he described as Peter) the GHS3.1 million was a component of the bailout package.
Mr Sory asked witness whether the that in terms of robbing Peter, that is the public purse (Bivest), captured in K15 showed that Bidvest was fully paid, having it on the list of payees was what meant “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
Witness said funds siphoned from the customers’ accounts which were moved out of a fictitious FASL account had to be paid back.
“Regardless of what we just found out from the exhibit based on your answer, indicating that everyone in exhibit AB1 was paid out of government’s bailout was not credible,” the lawyer asked.
Witness answered, “I did not say that exhibit AB1 is the list of payment made to the affected customers, what I stated was the list of those whose accounts were siphoned.”
Mr Nyinaku is accused of dishonestly appropriating customers’ funds which he has denied.
GNA