The former CEO of Capital Bank has been jailed for 15 years in prison with hard labour by the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour on the 12th of October 2023.
Mr Ato Essien was jailed for 15 years with hard labour for failure to pay an amount of 90m Ghana cedis as agreed on an earlier date.
The court accepted an arrangement between Essien and the Attorney-General for him to pay the GH90 million as restitution to the state. Essien was convicted in December last year but managed to avoid a jail sentence.
Essien, however has failed to meet the agreement.
Essien paid GH30 million of the total on December 1, 2022, and was required by the court-adopted agreement to pay the remaining GH60 million in three instalments, with the first instalment due by April 28, 2023, the second by August 31, 2023, and the final instalment due by December 15, 2023.
Although Essien missed the dates of April 28 and August 31 of this year, Justice Kyei Baffour stated that as of today, Essien had paid just GH7 million out of a possible GH40 million, bringing the total paid to GH37 million of the total GH90 million.
Essien still has to pay the state GH53 million in unpaid reparation and restitution, according to Justice Kyei Baffour, who decided that he may reclaim his freedom if he did.
