Sedinam Tamakloe, former CEO of MASLOC, has been sentenced to ten years in prison with hard labor, while Daniel Axim, former Chief Operating Officer of MASLOc, has been condemned to five years.
They were both convicted on 78 charges of causing financial damage to the state, stealing, conspiring to steal, money laundering, and causing loss of public property in violation of public procurement legislation.
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They have been on trial since 2019. The state summoned six witnesses in all, but the first accused, Sedina Tamakloe, was tried in absentia because she absconded after getting court authorization to seek medical treatment outside the country. The second accused, however, testified in person without calling any witnesses.
The charges for which the defendants have been found guilty involve the misappropriation of funds intended for MASLOc operations between 2013 and 2016.
In one case, the offenders were discovered to have withdrawn GHc 500,000 as a loan for Obaatampa Savings and Loans company but requested a return when the financial institution declined to produce a 24% profit on the transaction.
The evidence produced by the state revealed that, while there was proof of the aforementioned repayment to the inmates, it was not represented in the complaint institution MASLOc’s accounts and records.
The two were also found guilty of taking over 1.7 million Ghana cedis intended for a sensitization campaign. According to the circumstances of the lawsuit, MASLOc was due to distribute 20 Ghana cedis each to 85,300 recipients, totaling 1.7 million cedis. However, only 1,300 cedis were spent on the original purpose, with the remainder plundered by the criminals.
Similarly, only 579,800 out of 1.4 million cedis was distributed to the victims of an inferno in Kantamanso, with the two accused taking the rest.
The case also featured the purchase of certain automobiles for MASLOc, in which the funds disbursed exceeded the market price of the vehicles at the time, as well as the purchase of some Samsung phones.
Despite being purchased in bulk, the sums appeared to be larger than the prevailing market price at the time.
