Who Is Sedina Tamakloe? Former MASLOC boss Sedina Christine Tamakloe Attionu has been sentenced to 10 years in prisonment. The Director of Operations Daniel Axim also gets 5 years by High Court.
Both accused persons have been found guilty of 78 counts of causing financial loss to the state, stealing, conspiracy to steal, money laundering, and causing loss to public property, in violation of public procurement law.
The trial began in 2019, and the state presented six witnesses. Sedina Tamakloe, the first accused person, was tried in absentia as she fled the country after receiving permission from the court to seek medical treatment abroad.
The second accused person, however, testified in person but did not call any witnesses. The accused persons were accused of embezzling funds intended for MASLOC activities between 2013 and 2016.
During one of the cases, it was discovered that a group of convicts had taken out a loan of GHc 500,000 from Obaatampa Savings and Loans company. However, they demanded a refund of the amount when the financial institution refused to provide them with a 24% interest rate. Although the evidence presented by the state showed that the refund was made to the convicts, there was no record of it in the accounts and books of MASLOC, the complainant institution.
The two individuals have been found guilty of misappropriating over 1.7 million Ghana cedis, which was meant for a sensitization exercise. The case suggests that the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) had intended to provide 20 Ghana cedis each for 85,300 beneficiaries, totaling to 1.7 million cedis.
However, only 1,300 cedis were spent for the intended purpose, while the rest were misappropriated by the convicts. Furthermore, out of the 1.4 million cedis to be disbursed to the victims of a fire incident at Kantamanso, only 579,800 cedis were released, while the remaining amount was also misappropriated by the accused persons.
The case also involved the purchase of some vehicles for MASLOC, where the monies disbursed for the purchase were more than the market price of the vehicles at the time. Similarly, a similar situation was found with the purchase of some Samsung phones, where the evidence suggested that the amounts were higher than the prevailing market price at the time, even though they were bought in bulk.