The Attorney General (AG), Dr. Dominic Ayine, is working hard to extradite former CEO of Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Christine Tamakloe Attionu, to Ghana to serve her 10 year sentence.
Madam Attionu has been in the United States since 2021 after she refused to return to Ghana to face trial when she was granted leave by the court to travel for a medical check-up.
According to the Attorney General, the International Cooperation Unit of the Office of the Attorney General followed up on a request with the Department of Justice of the United States of America in September 2025.
Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, November 18, he said the Office of the Attorney General is awaiting the execution of a request to have Sedina Christine Tamakloe Attionu extradited.
Dr. Ayine told Parliament “So, if there is any impression being created that I am not taking any steps, this is the evidence that in September, that is just a month ago, I took the step of inquiring from the United States Justice Department about the steps that they were taking in respect of the extradition.”
He added that “they indicated that they are following their extradition procedures in executing the request and that the fugitive will be extradited as soon as they have satisfied all the procedures.”
A High Court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court judge, in April 2024, convicted and sentenced Madam Attionu to 10 years’ imprisonment in hard labour for causing financial loss to the state.
An interdicted Operations Manager of the Centre, Daniel Axim, was also sentenced to five (5) years’ imprisonment for the same offence for his role in the looting of state funds.
The trial judge, before sentencing the two, observed that people talk about violent crime and how wicked it is “…but when you have an educated thief, that thief is capable of causing far more havoc than someone with AK47 is capable of doing.”
The two were found guilty and convicted of all the 78 charges levelled against them by the Office of the Attorney General in 2019 for various criminal acts that led to the state losing a whopping GH¢93,044,134.66.
One of concerns raised by the trial judge during her judgement included an observation that no effort had been made by the state to have Madam Attionu arrested and returned to Ghana to stand trial.
However, in June 2024, the Office of the Attorney General secured a warrant for the arrest of the convict, who was declared a fugitive by a High Court in Accra, following her refusal to return to Ghana to face trial after she was granted leave to travel to the United States for medical checkup in 2021.
That was the second time a court had issued a warrant for her arrest, with the first one issued on November 16, 2021 after she failed to return to Ghana for the continuation of the trial.
Individually, Madam Attionu was sentenced to a total of 21 years’ imprisonment in hard labour for stealing (10 years), causing financial loss to the state (3 years), causing loss to public property (2 years), improper payment (6 months), unauthorised commitment resulting in a financial obligation for the government (6 months), money laundering (3 years) and contravention of the Public Procurement Act (2 years).
She was also fined a total of GH¢78,000 for the offences and in default she will serve another six years in jail.
Daniel Axim, on other hand, has been handed a total of eight (8) years – conspiracy to steal (5 years), conspiracy to wilfully cause financial loss to the state (12 months), and another two years for money laundering.
He was also fined a total of GH¢18,000 in default of which he is to serve another 24 months in prison.
But the court said the sentences are to run concurrently, meaning Madam Attionu would be serving a maximum of 10 years in prison while Mr. Axim would spend a total of five (5) years in prison.
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