Deputy Attorney-General (AG), Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, says he disagrees with Justice Eric Kyei Baffour that the proposed settlement in the Capital Bank trial will make crime attractive

On Thursday, the Commercial Division of the Accra High Court presided over by the Justice rejected the terms of settlements reached between state prosecutors and the founder of Capital Bank, William Ato Essien.

Mr. Essien, per the proposed settlement, agreed to pay GH₵90 million in total: GH₵30 million on Thursday and GH₵60 million in an agreed installment settlement with the state.

Responding to the question posed by Newsfile host, Samson Lardy Anyenini, on what his outfit thought of the assertion that the agreed settlement seeks to make crime attractive to people, he said the claim was far from true.

Mr Yeboah explained that “the judge spoke from an advantaged position, he is the one presiding and he knows what he may want to do. As a prosecutor, we cannot be certain that we will win the case, it will go the other way but perhaps the judge passed that comment because he is sitting in a privileged position so that is the response that I will give to that.”

He explained that previous experiences have informed his outfit to always pursue innovative ways to collect state monies from culprits before other punishments are meted out.

The Deputy AG further said that the approach his outfit used was not as simple as it seems because it still limited the accused from occupying some positions.

“Let’s go to our constitution, if you want to hold any public office, if you want to be an MP, if you want to be Minister, Deputy Minister, if you have been convicted of an offense involving dishonesty, you are limited from holding such position,” he said.

He stressed that the proposed approach dented the reputation of the former boss and creates limited opportunities for him.

“If you are a business person like Ato Essien who is into financing from the banks and specialized deposit taking institution Act, Act 930, you can not be a director of any financial institution or work in any position relating to the finances of the company, you cannot,” he noted.

Mr. Tuah-Yeboah further noted that the Attorney-General’s insistence on retrieving the monies from Ato Essien is because previous experience had shown that often when culprits were sent to prison, the State could not fall on any asset to recoup stolen funds.

“If someone does not have the asset you can fall on, you cannot say you are going to imprison the persons. So in this particular matter, maybe they are convicted by the court which we are certain the court may do because we have a very good case.

“If they are convicted and Ato Essien imprisoned and the court says we should go and then get his property and auction, do we know his property?” he said.