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The Court of Appeal has ordered the arrest and prosecution of the directors of Onward Investment Limited for engaging in an illegal banking business which has caused depositors to lose their investments. The court also ordered that the assets of the company and its directors and owners be traced and auctioned to pay the debt owed the depositors. The court, chaired by Justice Henrietta Abban, also directed the Bank of Ghana to execute the order with the collaboration of the security agencies, including the International Police (INTERPOL). It gave the order in its ruling on November 29, last year that set aside a high court ruling in the case in which Frank Asante and 131 other depositors are demanding a refund of their deposits from Onward Investments Ltd and he Bank of Ghana. According to the Appeal Court, the earlier ruling by the High Court, presided over by Justice Tanko Amadu, an Appeal Court Judge sitting as a High Court Judge, failed to take into consideration the interest of all the depositors of the said illegal bank, ordering that all monies in the custody of the Central Bank that were retrieved from the company be shared among all the victims. Among other things, the Court of Appeal criticized the Bank of Ghana for poor supervision, which enabled the company to operate a bank without the appropriate license, and admonished it to ensure that all the victims of the fraudulent operations of Onward Investment had a share of monies retrieved from the company. �In the light of the notorious PYRAM scandal some years ago, which caused grave pain to people who either innocently or greedily invested in that enterprise, one would have expected the Bank of Ghana to be more concerned about and be a lot more intrusive in monitoring the financial industry and its related environment, with the view to detecting early and rapidly flushing out all such fraudulent enterprises,� the judgement said. Lamenting on the role played by the Bank of Ghana in the case, the court stressed an �urgent need for the Bank of Ghana to be more pro-active, instead of being re-active in connection with its regulatory and supervisory role in a manner that protects the Ghanaian public against the predatory tendencies of persons who abuse the financial institutional structures of the country.� �Therefore, the Bank of Ghana cannot, in this matter, say the matter is under investigation by the police and simply throw up its hands in despair. It cannot afford to subcontract its powers to the police who are simply mandated to investigate the matter and if any criminality is detected, facilitate the prosecution of whoever is culpable.� �It is similarly not open to the Bank of Ghana also to abdicate its responsibility under the guise of police investigation. It must be seen to be protecting persons who have deposited money with the defendant company which, to all intents and purposes, was masquerading as a bank.� Additionally, the court urged the Bank of Ghana �to seriously consider embarking upon continuing intensive and broad public education in both the print and electronic media on the activities and implications of the conduct of the many clearly fraudulent enterprises ostensibly operating in the country under the guise of being banks or saving and loans establishments.� The Bank of Ghana has appeared before an Accra High Court, presided over by Justice Gertrude Torkonoo with an application seeking to set aside the High Court�s orders of July 18, 2012 and August 22, 2012 on the grounds that the orders did not take into consideration the fact that there were other depositors, aside the 132 plaintiffs. In a considered decision given on December 18, 2012, Justice Tanko Amadu dismissed the Bank of Ghana�s application, and made consequential orders directing the bank to determine the order of priorities in terms of compliance with the directions from the rulings. The 132 plaintiffs were, however, dissatisfied and appealed against the consequential orders of the High Court.