Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu, has been arrested and detained in the United States of America (USA).
Her arrest and detention followed an extradition request in July 2024, after she was tried in absentia and jailed for 10 years for causing financial loss to the state.
Her detention was confirmed by the Ghana Embassy in Washington in the United States, in a statement issued last Thursday and signed by Ghana’s envoy to the US, Victor Emmanuel Smith.
“I can, today, confirm that Mrs Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu is being detained at the Nevada Southern Detention Centre, 2190 East Mesquite Avenue, Pahrump, Nevada. My information is that she was detained by US Marshals on January 6 and has since been kept at that detention centre.
“I am reliably informed that acting on an extradition request sent to the US Authorities sometime in July 2024, US Marshals arrested Mrs Tamakloe-Attionu and placed her in detention to await her day in court,” the embassy’s statement said.
Background
Mrs Tamakloe-Attionu, who was allowed by the High Court in Accra to travel to the US to seek medical attention in 2021, had since not returned to the country.
This preceded the granting of an application by the prosecution to conduct the trial in her absence on February 24, 2023.
In April 2024, the High Court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe convicted the former CEO of MASLOC to a 10-year jail term for a financial loss of GH¢90 million to the state.
She was jailed together with the former Operations Manager of MASLOC, Daniel Axim, who was handed a five-year jail term for raising memos 23 times, under the direction of Mrs Tamakloe-Attionu, for the collection of funds which were not used for the projects for which they were released.
The two were found guilty on 78 counts of causing financial loss to the state, stealing, conspiracy to steal, money laundering and causing loss to public property in contravention of public procurement law.
For instance, the two could not account for GH¢1,706,000, which was meant for a sensitisation and monitoring programme for 85,300 beneficiaries of MASLOC loans, and GH¢1,465,035 meant to support victims of the Kantamanto Market disaster.
Prior to the trial in absentia, the court, on January 24, 2023, ordered the former CEO of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Alex Mould, and actor Gavivina Tamakloe to pay the GH¢5 million bail bond to the state for their failure to produce the accused person, for whom they stood as sureties.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh