Mildred Donkor
Mildred Donkor, the prosecution’s third witness in the trial of former Director-General of National Signals Bureau (NSB), Kwabena Adu-Boahene and his wife, Angela Adjei-Boateng, yesterday confirmed to the court that she was not doing anything irregular or illegal in the assistance she offered to Adu-Boahene relative to cash withdrawals and deposit transfers.
She also confirmed to the court that Mr. Adu-Boahene relied on her “banking experience and expertise for transactions” at the Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) during her tenure with the bank.
This assistance, she further confirmed, was part of her normal service offering as a banker, stressing that this assistance she provided to Mr. Adu-Boahene continued even after she had left UMB.
Mr. Adu-Boahene and his wife, Angela Adjei-Boateng, have been charged for allegedly stealing a total of GH$49.1 million from the state.
The two, as well as Advantage Solutions Limited, are facing a total of 11 counts of conspiracy to commit crime, stealing, using public office for profit, money laundering and causing financial loss to the state.
Mildred Donkor was initially charged alongside the accused persons but later converted into a prosecution witness.
The witness, who was the director of companies incorporated by the couple, while under cross-examination on Tuesday by Samuel Atta Akyea, counsel for the accused, confirmed that Mr. Adu-Boahene was introduced to her superiors at UMB.
She also confirmed under cross-examination that the accounts of BNC Communications Bureau Limited as well as Advantage Solutions Limited, two companies belonging to Adu-Boahene and its subsidiaries, were considered as prestige accounts at UMB.
She, however, said she could not tell whether her superiors paid special attention to the accounts because they were prestige accounts.
Meanwhile, the witness has testified that she had in her possession pre-signed cheque books for the accounts of BNC Communications Bureau Limited, as well as Advantage Solutions and its subsidiaries at UMB.
“These cheque books are with me because when the accounts are opened, and the cheque books come, they are requested mostly in two copies, so one is kept with me and the other one is often given to A1 or A2,” she said.
She further indicated that “they are presigned because getting Al or A2 to sign when he gives an instruction was difficult. He mostly sent people to me, and all his transactions were termed as urgent, both from Al and A2, and because he wanted his transactions to be acted upon and treated as urgent, he signed the cheque books for me to keep, so that when he orders or sends people to me, I issue it out.”
“You did not apply any of the withdrawals you made for your personal use, did you?” Mr. Atta-Akyea asked. “No my Lord,” Mrs. Donkor responded.
“Apart from the monies recorded in Exhibit G, your handwritten notebook and the cash withdrawals you testified that you gave to third parties, cash withdrawals you made were taken to A1 or Edith Ruby Adumuah at the National Security Office in Labone, not so?” the lawyer further asked.
“Not always,” the witness answered.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak