The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, said the failure of 7 local banks must be blamed on individuals who stole depositors’ funds for their personal use.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said that the government will ensure that all persons responsible for the collapse of the indigenous banks face the law.
Speaking at a press conference to inaugurate the Tax Dialogue Initiative Tuesday, Mr Ofori-Atta said the failure of 7 local banks must be blamed on individuals who stole depositors’ funds for their personal use.
“I think as a nation, we are really soft about enforcement of laws and hopefully what we are going to do in the banking sector, everybody will begin to realize that those periods are gone, and if I am going to have to spend 5.6 billion to bail out the banking system because I have to protect depositors, the question is not one of a banking failure.”
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“I need to be able to tell you that that managing director or that shareholder stole that money and it has to be very upfront because that’s 5 billion that I’m using as opposed to School Feeding, maternal issues, and the issue of sentiments are out of it. It is not a bank failure. It is individuals who have done something to bring us to this compromising position and I think it is that same sense of social justice that we should bring to bear in the tax administration system.”
The licenses of 5 banks were revoked recently by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr Ernest Addison.
The banks are Sovereign bank, Beige Bank, Construction Bank, Royal Bank and uniBank.
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Meanwhile, in 2017 UT and Capital Banks collapsed first. The 2 banks were taken over by GCB on the instructions of the Bank of Ghana.
According to Dr Addison, some of the 5 newly collapsed banks obtained their licenses through false pretenses. The 5 had been collapsed into a new bank; the Consolidated Bank of Ghana and deposits of the collapsed banks had been transferred to the Consolidated Bank.