Sentencing of former MASLOC CEO: I’m satisfied that a wrongdoer has been found guilty, says Frederick Oduro

A former CEO and COO of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) have been sentenced to prison terms for corruption, in a case hailed by governance expert Frederick Oduro.

Sedina Tamakloe, a former CEO, received ten years in jail with hard labor, while Daniel Axim, former COO, was sentenced to five years.

The pair were found guilty of 78 charges, including causing financial loss to the state, theft, money laundering and flouting public procurement laws.

Oduro, speaking on Asaase Radio’s Big Bulletin on Tuesday (16 April), expressed mixed emotions. “I am not happy if anybody has to go to jail,” he said, “but to say somebody is convicted for doing something wrong, I will say I am very happy because if we were to assess the amount of money this country loses annually through corrupt practices, it will amaze everybody, and if we were saving all this money, we needn’t have gone to the World Bank.”

Oduro added, “There are clearly defined laws in this country about public procurement and about public financial management.”

“If we have the opportunity to serve in a public office, you have a duty to ensure that you apply the rules to ensure that the country or the citizens get the benefit out of your office, but in our part of the world, it looks as if when people get into office, it’s an opportunity to make themselves and their family members better off,” he added.

He further criticised the tendency to politicise criminal acts. “I wouldn’t be surprised [if] the NDC (National Democratic Congress) issued a response talking about the fact that this has been a political trial and all that; it’s the way the political parties behave,” Oduro said.

“We must call wrong acts wrong acts and stop politicising criminal acts. We allow people to get away with literally murder because we tend to politicise these matters but I think I am satisfied that a wrongdoer has been found guilty by a competent law of the land,” he added.

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