An international warrant of arrest has been issued against Stanbic Bank’s South Sudan Country head Fredrick Owuor Ouko, following a dispute over millions of shillings deposited in an airline’s bank account and later reversed.
The warrant was issued on January 7, 2025 by the Public Prosecution Attorney over a dispute between the bank and Air Afrik Aviation Limited.
Air Afrik through its Managing Director Eric Lugalia has accused Stanbic Bank of freezing its accounts and deducting money without authorisation after 14 months, leading to a loss of business for the airline.
“…To Arrest the suspect through Interpol whereas Fredrick Owuor Ouko stands charged the offence undersection 346/366/110 of the Penal Code, 2008, you are hereby directed to arrest the said person and bring him before the investigator,” the warrant of arrest issued through the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs stated.
The development comes a few weeks after a South Sudan public prosecutor issued a summons against Stanbic Bank CEO Joshua Oigara over the same dispute.
In Kenya, Mr Oigara and other senior officials of the lender had obtained court orders blocking summons from the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit over the same matter.
The bank argued that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) was seeking to investigate a matter that is pending before the High Court.
The airline was a customer of the bank and operated an account at its Juba Branch in South Sudan.
On February 5, 2016, the bank received a credit note from the Bank of South Sudan (BoSS), advising it that the airline’s clearing and settlement account and BoSS had been credited with $7,22 million (about Sh931 million).
The lender went ahead and credited Air Afrik’s bank account with the amount. Stanbic said the airline allegedly carried out large value transactions on its account and withdrew a total of $1.1 million (Sh141 million).
In an affidavit filed in court, Mr Owuor said the credit made was only a paper credit transaction that reflects in the bank’s books for purposes of internal accounting, which is a normal practice in the banking industry but does not translate to remittance of available funds.
“In normal practice, such funds would reflect as a credit on the customer’s account but would not reflect in the available balance until actual funds had been received,” he said.
The lender said it later realised that no actual funds had been remitted by BoSS as alleged and reversed the funds to prevent further withdrawals since the funds ‘were paid in error”.
The airline sought to be paid damages for losses suffered after a plane leasing contract of $20 million(Sh2.58 billion) with the South Sudan government was terminated after the funds were withheld.
The parties then unsuccessfully tried to resolve the dispute before Air Afrik complained to the CBK.
The proceedings at the High Court have since been suspended, pending an appeal filed by the lender, after Justice Nixon Sifuna declined to recuse himself from the matter.
Justices Mumbi Ngugi, Pauline Nyamweya, and Weldon Korir suspended the proceedings and set to give a ruling on March 21, 2025.
