The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Citizenship, Constitutional and Electoral Systems (CenCES), James Kwabena Bomfeh has argued that the focus in the case involving former MASLOC CEO Sedina Tamakloe should not be limited to sentencing, but also on recovering any state funds that may have been lost.

Speaking on JoyNews' Newsfile on Saturday, June 13, James Kwabena Bomfeh has called for greater attention to the recovery of state funds in the case involving former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre, Sedina Tamakloe Attionu.

Mr Bomfeh argued that punishment alone is insufficient if the state is unable to recover money allegedly lost through wrongdoing.

“We need to look at that so that it is not as if someone gets the opportunity, abuses it to amass money at the expense of the state, serves a sentence and then comes back to enjoy it,” he said.

He questioned what had become of the funds at the centre of the case and whether adequate efforts had been made to trace and recover them.

“Whatever the money was used for, where is the money? Has the state addressed that?” he asked.

According to Mr Bomfeh, accountability should go beyond securing convictions and custodial sentences to include the retrieval of public funds where losses have occurred.

He maintained that the ultimate objective should be to ensure that the state does not permanently lose resources through acts of corruption or financial impropriety, regardless of the outcome of criminal proceedings.