Toyor Banjo, the chief creditor at Bank PHB, on Tuesday, 29th December 2009, gave evidence as the first prosecution witness in a trial involving the state and one Bakary Camara.

Camara is facing charges of stealing by servant, an allegation he refuted. In his testimony before Senior Magistrate Abdoulie Mbake of the Kanifing Magistrates Court, Banjo informed the court that he had been working with the said bank for the last 22 months and that he was the chief creditor.  He added that the bank transacts two board classes of loans; that is personal loan and commercial loan.  He also outlined that the loans are being transacted by the bank.

According to him, several memos are sent to all the staff of the bank and the managers are mandated to distribute to all the states. He also informed the court that the bank came to realise that there were some debit entries into the accounts of one Ebrima Ndow and Christian Chimi, being authorised by someone in the system.

Banjo further told the court that this was detected after reviewing of the loans by the bank.  He added during, this certain names came out which did not pass through the credit office. Based on this, he said the bank conducted an audit exercise on the accused software, which revealed that the accused had set a limit above service leaders limit.  He told the court that he (Banjo) wrote a memo to the accused detailing certain transactions done on the system and that the accused responded in affirmative. On this response, he said, an internal control department conducted an investigation and subsequently reported the matter to the police.

According to the prosecution, the accused (Camara), while working as an employee of the said bank at the Serrekunda branch, gave some money as loan to three different individuals without the consent of the said bank, thereby committed an offence.