Shock is rippling through industry players in the rarefied of banking at the discovery, that under Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah’s nose at the Bank of Ghana, the chief regulator of banks in the country, has engaged in the ruthless demonstration of forgery of court documents just to forcefully eject and take disciplinary actions against one of its employees.
Fortunately, this series of the high profile blunder was detected in July 2014, by the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID), but displayed reluctance in pursuing the officials at the Bank of Ghana involved in the forgery under the guise that, “the case is under investigation to find out the source of the second order which the court denounced.”
On a cursory look, one might be deceived the order for interlocutory injunction(published elsewhere, marked exhibit B), dated May 20, 2013,(order 25, rule 1 of C.I 47),and given under the gavel of Justice Kwabena Asuman-Adu, a High Court Judge (Industrial/Labour Division 1), was the same order the Bank of Ghana relied upon in ejecting Benjamin Duffour, a former employee of the bank, who was rubbing wit with the bank in court over the bank’s intention to relocate him from his Cantonment residence, until the CID established it was forged.
Our findings further revealed that the bank also filed the forged order in a different case brought against Benjamin, where he was alleged to have threatened the bank’s head of security in suit no. RO 29/2014, in an Accra court (details later).
Aside the date, suit number, and the name of the Registrar that were maintained by the bank in its forged order, the whole of order “b” by the court in the genuine court order (also published elsewhere, marked exhibit A) was altered to suit the bank’s agenda.
For instance, whilst order “b” on the genuine court order read: “That the Plaintiff/Applicant’s application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain the Defendants/Respondents from ejecting him from his official accommodation at H/NO.2, Shippi Close, East Cantonment, Accra, is refused”, the one which the bank relied upon read: “That the Defendant/Respondent is granted the order to eject the Plaintiff/Applicant from his official accommodation at H/No.2 Shippi Close, East Cantonment, Accra.”
Our checks also revealed that whilst the stamp on the true copy of the court’s order was vertical, that on the order the bank used in effecting the ejection was horizontal.
Not even the wordings in the opening paragraph of the order was spared as it was skewed to read: “UPON READING the motion paper, the supporting affidavit and supplementary affidavit of BENJAMIN DUFFUOR of H/No.2 Shippi Close, East Cantonment, Accra…” whereas the genuine order read: “UPON READING the affidavit of BENJAMIN DUFFUOR.,H/No.2 Shippi Close, East Cantonment, Accra, filed on …”
Also, this paper gathered from a letter dated July 22, 2012, signed by the Registrar of the court, Sebastian Agbo, and addressed to the Director CID that, “… the correct order has the initials of the court’s secretary, i.e ‘d.a.indl.20.05.13’ at the bottom of the order”.
It came to pass that the Bank of Ghana, in separate letters dated, 5 and 6 December, 2011, directed that the occupants of its Block F building, off Shippi Close, East Cantonment, would be relocated to make way for the entire building to be pulled down as because, as the bank said in the letters, “…the entire building has serious cracks in almost all the wall” and that “indeed, the whole building is in deplorable state and very unsightly”.
Unconvinced by the directive, the residents, six in number, in a letter dated 20th September 2013, fired a petition to management demanding to know why they were bent on going ahead with the demolition, after the Human Resource had assured them verbally in a subsequent meeting that the letters served on them earlier should be disregarded, “…as the evidence on the ground did not support the letter.”
However, in a different press release from the bank, dated, 1 March 2014, (written on a Saturday), the regulator of banks indicated that, “… the land was to be used for a 60-bed modern hospital to cater for the healthcare needs of staff of the Bank and also members of the general public”.
Back-and-forth, Benjamin Duffour, sensing the rise of official hatred against him for leading other residents to demand answers to the bizarre circumstance under which they were being relocated and its attendant inconveniences, the former chairman of the bank’s senior staff resorted to the court for legal redress. It was the order of the court that the bank forged to eject and take disciplinary action against him.
Meanwhile, Bank of Ghana have been tight-lipped on the issue as none was prepared to go on record to offer explanations as to why a bank of its calibre would be engaged in such act.
Public Relations Officer of the bank, Esi Hammond, had not responded to a questionnaire this reporter sent her on the issue as at the time of filing this report, the New Crusading Guide added.
