The day was December 15,2008.I resigned my appointment with a bank and moved on to another.I was really happy with the pay rise,higher grade and other perks that came with the new job.After a month’s training,I was moved to another branch as Cash Officer despite the fact that my new grade is that of head of operations.

The greatest crisis of my banking career was about to strike.Unknown to me,the head of operations and the branch manager were running a cartel of fraud-granting unauthorized loans to the branch’s so-called biggest customer.

What they did was simple but avoidable if the system controls of the bank had been firmly in place.They issued signed but unposted banker’s cheques for the customer.These cheques then passed through the clearing system undetected by the bank and value is granted.The customer then returned the money after two or three days.This practice started almost as soon as the account was opened in October 2008.I got to the branch mid-January,2009.

I was not informed of the practice on the ground by the head of operations or anybody in the branch.There was a mysterious culture of silence even though most of them knew what was going on.Issuing a manager’s cheque involves debiting the customer’s account for the value required and crediting a manager’s cheque account.This implies that a manager’s cheque cannot be issued without debiting the customer.The responsibility for the above falls on the Funds Transfer Officer and the Head of Operations.

I made the mistake of trusting the two of them.I signed the Manager’s cheques issued for the customer beleiving that the customer has been debited.Perhaps,I was a victim of experience.In almost ten years of banking experience,I have never seen a single case where manager’s cheques were issued(except for cases of system failure which does not apply)without debiting the customer.Also,I have never seen a case where the second signatory checks the system to ensure that the head of operation has debited the customer before signing.Stare decisis failed me this time around,but there are no excuses.By any standard,I was negligient.

Incidentally,the customer was a fraudulent one.He was returning the earlier loans he received just to build trust.Barely a month that I got to the branch,he struck.He collected the loan and refused to pay.Since the loan was unsecured,the money was lost.It was then I got to know about the whole scam.

The bank handed me and four others to security operatives.I was detained for six days and released on bail.We were told to be reporting at the Investigators’office on a weekly basis.I went there one thursday and was told that our bail has been cancelled.We were detained immediately for another eight days.This was after an Executive Director and a senior staff in the Audit department had told me they knew I was innocent.Tough luck!

When we were released the second time,the bank placed the five of us on suspension without pay effective February 27th,2009.I was recalled back to work in December,2009.I was trying to adjust to life at work when I was retrenched on 27th March,2010 due to “restructuring exercise”.It was as if my move to the new bank was ill-timed and ill-fated as I was well-respected in my former bank.

I am through with the “mourning” period and have moved on.I learnt my lessons the hard way:trust your colleagues with restrain,check and cross-check any document that bears your signature,take extra caution when you are in a new environment,appreciate the freedom to go out when you want as it is the first thing you lose when you are detained and when life goes hard,don’t go bad.