UniBank Not Aware CEO Had Given $12m Loan To Sister Company

When uniPrecision needed a $12 million loan, its Board Chairman, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor II, fell on Dr. Kwabena Duffuor II as CEO of uniBank.

uniPrecision, a printing company, which Dr. Duffuor chaired and uniBank which Dr. Duffour founded, are related companies owned by a parent company HODA Holdings Ltd. HODA means House of Duffuor Assets.

A 278-page confidential report by KPMG, which performed a financial autopsy on how the bank founded in 1997 folded up in 2018. It has emerged that the $12m uniBank loan was an "off-balance sheet transaction."

In other words, uniBank officially did not know $12m of its money had left their bank's books.

There was no collateral from uniPrecision and the loan approval was granted without going through any process, the KMPG said.

Dr. Duffour is faulted for soley approving the loan in breach of banking regulations whose implementation he once supervised as Bank of Ghana's governor.

This is one of 12 such activities which the KPMG report flagged as suspicious activity. In monetary terms, these activities amounted to ¢3.7billion in credit under "unusual terms."

In another case, uniBank went for a $25 million loan from African Export-Import Bank (AfrExim) which it explained, was going to lend this money to LHS and Bulk Oil Storage Transportation (BOST).

According to the KPMG report, the money left AfrExim but never got to LHS or BOST. uniBank "utilised the facility arranged for its own purposes and not as indicated in the [refinancing facility] agreement."

As at May 31, 2017, the balance has not been paid.
House of Duffour Assets is a full house comprising of 28 companies owned by the Duffuor family.

The cashcow was uniBank, which was used to help its sister companies in "suspicious" circumstances. But when the cashcow began running low on cash, the bank turned to the megacow - the Bank of Ghana.

But not even ¢2.2bn pumped into uniBank within its final 24 months could revive the struggling indigenous bank.

By August 2018, the Bank of Ghana announced uniBank was no more.