According to him, the amount being used to save the banking sector could easily have gone into direct government policies like maternal health care or free Senior High School which would have been of direct benefit to the populace.
The Finance Minister of Ghana Ken Ofori Atta says the chaotic situation in the financial sector is not one of banking failure but rather individual failures.
The minister whose ministry is coughing out ¢5.8 billion to rescue the insolvent banks says it is time for “social justice.”
According to him, the amount being used to save the banking sector could easily have gone into direct government policies like maternal health care or free Senior High School which would have been of direct benefit to the populace.
At least seven banks -Capital Bank, UT Bank, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, uniBank, Beige Bank and The Royal Bank- have gone under in the last 12 months with their directors becoming subjects of criminal investigations.
Capital and UT Banks were the first to go under in August 2017 and their assets taken over by GCB. After 12 months, five more banks were also liquidated and merged into the Consolidated Ghana Bank.
Some of the managers were deemed to have engaged in acts of criminality with a good of them found guilty of poor corporate governance practices.
Dozens of workers have lost their jobs, some their lives, with many others struggling to make ends meet, 12 months on.
There have been calls for the directors to be prosecuted to act as a deterrent to others, an assertion the Finance Minister agrees to.