UT Bank collapse: I think of jail – Kofi Amoabeng confesses

Chief Executive Officer for defunct UT Bank, Kofi Amoabeng says he sometimes thinks about jail.

Kofi Amoabeng’s UT Bank was part of the banks that were closed down due to their liquidity issues and the utter disregard for Corporate Governance.

Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Mx-24 monitored by MyNewsGh.com, he indicated that sometimes he thinks he will be given a jail term because of the issues with his bank.

“Yeah,” he responded when asked if he thinks he will make a jail term.

The businessman acknowledged that as a bank, a lot of mistakes were done indicating that “as human beings we are fallible”.

Four companies belonging to Ibrahim Mahama took a loan of ¢261.4m from UT Bank with Dzata Cement receiving ¢131.5m. Lawyers for Ibrahim Mahama have disputed the figure but declined to state the amount taken.

Addressing this issue, Kofi Amoabeng said he has never regretted giving out such monies to the brother of the former President of Ghana to start his business.

“I don’t regret it,” the businessmen answered to a question on whether he regrets giving Ibrahim Mahama the loan.

The Attorney-General (A-G) in February this year filed new charges at the Accra High Court against Prince Kofi Amoabeng, the founder of the defunct UT Bank, over the collapse of the bank.

The charge sheet filed at the Accra High Court named as accused persons Dr. Johnson Asiama; a former 2nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Raymond Amanfu; a former Head of the Banking Supervision Division (BSD) of the BoG, Catherine Johnson; Head of Treasury of the UTBank, Robert Kwesi Armah; General Manager of Corporate Banking of UT Bank and UT Holdings; the parent company of UT Bank.

All five have been charged by the State with forty-two (42) counts of fraudulent breach of trust, fabrication of evidence, deceit of public officer, fraudulently causing financial loss to the Republic, contravention of the Bank of Ghana Act and wilfully causing financial loss to the Republic.