Accra: Former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Christine Tamakloe-Attionu, has filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal to overturn her 2024 conviction and sentence by the Accra High Court. In the appeal, Tamakloe-Attionu's legal team contends that the charges leading to her conviction were defective and lacked adequate details regarding the offences she was accused of committing.
According to Ghana Web, the appeal challenges her conviction on multiple charges, including conspiracy to steal, stealing, conspiracy to cause financial loss to the state, causing financial loss to the state, causing loss to public property, improper payment of public funds, unauthorized commitment resulting in financial obligation to government, money laundering, and breach of the Public Procurement Act. The filing noted that the charges simply restated the law without specifying the acts or omissions that constituted the alleged offences.
The defence argues that this deficiency violates Article 19(2)(d) of the 1992 Constitution, which ensures an accused person's right to be informed in detail about the nature of the charges. They further referenced previous Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions that indicate defective particulars of offences could make a conviction unsafe.
Tamakloe-Attionu initially faced the High Court in January 2019 with Daniel Axim. The prosecution claimed that during her tenure as MASLOC CEO from November 2013 to January 2017, she engaged in fraudulent disbursement of MASLOC funds. A significant allegation involved a GHS500,000 investment with Obaatanpa Micro Finance Company Limited, where she allegedly requested a cash refund instead of a cheque, which was then delivered to her.
The defence, however, argued the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt her dishonest appropriation of the funds. Tamakloe-Attionu denied authoring an acknowledgment letter pivotal to the prosecution's case, asserting that the prosecution needed to verify the document's authenticity rather than her disproving it.
Additional challenges in the appeal include allegations about withdrawing over GHS1.8 million for a sensitization and monitoring programme. The defence claimed that crucial witnesses, such as programme beneficiaries and regional MASLOC officials, were not called by the prosecution.
Regarding vehicle procurement charges, Tamakloe-Attionu's lawyers contended that no MASLOC funds were paid under the contract before she left office in January 2017. They argued that a new management team renegotiated the contract and made payments in 2018, thus absolving her of responsibility for any financial loss post her tenure.
The appeal also highlighted testimony from MASLOC's Head of Finance concerning ex gratia payments. The witness reportedly confirmed that these payments were processed through the finance department with requisite documentation from the Office of the President and Human Resource Department, finding nothing unusual in the documents during cross-examination.