I had been with Austin and Austin an audit and advisory firm for 7years. I was handpicked by the firm for national service after finishing top of my class in business school at college. During the national service, the paid for my upgrade into a professional; ACCA, Chartered Tax Accountant and other short term professional courses to be a top-notch professional.
All of that took close to 3years and I was made to sign a contract of commitment for 10 years. I had just done 4 years of the commitment.
I owed everything to Austin and Austin. They made me who I had become; successful and sort after audit professional in the country. My team and I had the accounts of the Top 10 companies in the country under our management. We were simply just the best.
As we drove to the EOCO office I kept asking myself what could have gone wrong for such an ordeal. Whiles on our way, the EOCO official said to me; "I was really surprised when my boss gave me the warrant to invite you to our office for questioning", you are one of the very best professionals we have in the country, I pray you are innocent in all of this because you a real inspiration to me. I have asked my boss to exempt me from the questioning since am not sure I can be objective due to a conflict of my admiration for you. I pray you are innocent; those were the last words of Selestine to me.
We got to the EOCO office around 2:30pm, I was asked to make some phone calls; I called my lawyer, my fiancee and other close relatives in the industry who could offer help.
For starts I was asked some pretty basic questions by the officer in charge. From his line of questioning I realised he was trying to establish intent and motive.
Based on how the line of question were going I opted not to speak further until my lawyer was around because I realised he was trying to incriminate me with his questions.
For about an hour, my lawyer was around, he had some few words with the EOCO team, after a while, I was told I could leave but report the next day around lunch time for a detailed and proper conversation. My lawyer drove me off and explained to me the nature of the case they had against me. He made me understand that they had realised that I had signed off for the transfer of some funds amounting to over GHc 3 million from the accounts of the firms which they ordered for their files.
He explained to me it was going to be a very tricky case to win since all the transactions had my final approval. Just that moment, I realised I was been betrayed and set up by my subordinate.
I was shocked beyond words!
Was this really happening? Do I have a chance to turn things around?