Following several complaints, ADM monitoring at most of the banks in the Accra metropolis has revealed that some cashiers at certain banks (names withheld) have allegedly resorted to taking some unspecified amounts of money from every huge sum of money withdrawn by customers.

Some of the customers who pleaded anonymity told the ADM that the cashiers have taken undue advantage of the customers' resolve to go home or reach their destinations before counting their moneys, so that armed robbers do not get the chance to trail them.

ADM can authoritatively reveal that the latest victim of this alleged quiet but steadily increasing money pilfering at the banks is a wife (name withheld) of one of the leading ministers of state. She was shocked to realize that over a hundred and fifty thousand cedis had been taken from her wads of millions of cedis she had withdrawn from a bank in the capital city.

During our monitoring and inquiries from customers at some banks in Accra, we chanced on a lady in her middle twenties who had experienced this alleged new trend of duping bank customers.

She told the ADM that she went to a rural bank in Kasoa to cash an amount of one million cedis to settle her mother's medical bills. She alleged that she was so much in hurry to take the money to the hospital that she did not have time to check the money she had withdrawn.

"When I rushed out of the bank and got to the hospital, I realized that the cashier had deliberately or unintentionally shared the money '50:50' with me", she revealed. She said with the assistance of some elders and some staff of the bank, she was able to retrieve her balance of ¢500,000.

Few people the ADM spoke to, however, said they had not encountered such experience, but most customers confirmed that there are occasions when they realized that amounts ranging from ¢20,000 to ¢100,000 are missing from moneys they go to cash at the banks.

A branch manager of one of the private banks at Lapaz who pleaded anonymity did not rule out the possibility of such incidents but denied that it is a deliberate attempt by the cashiers to dupe customers.

"I am not holding brief for any bank, but there are serious implications to this if it is really happening. Any bank whose cashiers deliberately do that could loose its customers. But I am tempted to believe that it could be a money counting machine error and not sabotage by the cashiers", he said.

The branch manager said there are rules governing the banking sector and therefore if any customer has any "thing to complain of, he or she should petition the branch manager or write to the head of banking supervision at the Bank of Ghana."

He advised customers to check their money at the counter before leaving. When we contacted the head of banking supervision we were directed to the head of banking, but we could not reach the latter for his or her comments.