A High Court in Accra has convicted the former CEO of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedinam Tamakloe Attionu, and a former Operations Manager of the state firm, Daniel Axim on charges of causing financial loss to the state.
The two have been sentenced to 10 and five years respectively, the court declared in judgment today, April 16.
Sedinam Tamakloe Attionu was sentenced in absentia as she’s not been to court ever since she took medical leave to the US in 2021.
Attionu led the firm from 2013-2016, but following the assumption of a new government, she was accused in 2019 of misappropriating funds intended for MASLOC activities and supervising many procurement breaches.
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Along with Daniel Axim, they were charged with 78 counts of causing financial loss to the state, stealing, and money laundering after a 2017 investigation by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) found fraudulent disbursement of funds within the institution.
One such disbursement concerned a GHC 500,000 loan refund that could not be accounted for. The money had been initially lent to Obaatanpa Micro-Finance Company. But after the company refused to pay a 24% interest on the amount, then-MASLOC CEO, Sedinam Attionu asked its directors to refund the loan in cash, prosecutors said during the trial. Even though the cash amount was returned to Attionu on the night of August 28, 2014, prosecutors said it was not reflected in the institution’s audits.
They had also been accused of inflating the price of items the company had purchased during her tenure and in some instances signed procurement contracts without approval by the Public Procurement Authority for the purchase of about 350 vehicles.
Specifically for Daniel Axim, the court found him guilty of raising memos 23 times, under the direction of Attionu, for the collection of funds that were not used for their intended purpose. Giving examples from the investigation, the AG had argued in its case that Ms. Attionu and her operations manager failed to account for GH¢1.7 million meant for a sensitisation and monitoring programme and GH¢1.4 million meant to support victims of a 2013 fire disaster at the Kantamanto Market, in Accra.
