Court frees Sylvester Mensah's accounts

The Financial and Economic Crime Division of the Accra High Court Thursday unfroze all the bank accounts of the former Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Sylvester Mensah, in the case in which he was being investigated in connection with some financial transactions during his tenure as chief executive.

The court also issued a similar order to unfroze some bank accounts of four others who were also being investigated.

Mr Mensah’s four accounts are with the Access Bank, the United Bank for Africa (UBA), the Energy Bank and Ecobank.

The accounts were unfrozen following an application filed by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) urging the court to defreeze the assets of the former NHIA boss because no adverse findings had been made against him.

The court had, on January 7, 2016, ordered that all bank accounts of Mr Mensah be frozen until investigations into alleged financial malfeasance levelled against him were over.

It followed an ex parte application made by the FIC, which serves as a national centre for the receipt and analysis of suspicious transactions, information relevant to money laundering, associated predicate offences and financing of terrorism.

But at the court’s sitting Thursday, Mr  C.H. Chambers, counsel for the FIC, said the centre was moving a motion to unfreeze all the accounts.

A happy man

Mr David Kudoadzi, counsel for Mr Mensah, told the court that he was grateful for the turn of events.

Bespectacled and dressed in a grey suit over a white shirt, with black shoes to match, Mr Mensah was full of smiles as he walked out of the very courtroom where his accounts had been ordered to be frozen.

He told the media that “it has been a painful experience, but a legitimate action and I’m glad to hear that there has been no adverse finding against me”.

The BNI investigations 

Mr Mensah was granted bail on January 4, 2016 after interrogation at the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

The former CEO, who is now a presidential aide, reportedly presented himself to the BNI on January 1, 2016 after seven armed BNI operatives had gone to his residence at Tse Addo, near the Trade Fair Centre in Accra, on December 31, 2015.

The investigations began in July last year at the instance of President John Dramani Mahama.

Seventeen people have also been cautioned and granted bail by the BNI.

According to the BNI, some medical facilities had been falsifying documents and submitting bloated claims to the NHIA. In some cases, officials of those medical facilities colluded with officials of the NHIA to defraud the authority.