President Nana Akufo-Addo has said his administration inherited a collapsing financial sector that has led to failing banks but the government is having to conjure thirteen billion cedis (GH¢13 billion) to pay the 4.6 million affected customers of the banks.
The payment, according to the President will begin, on Monday, 24th February, making payments to their customers, these monies, totaling five billion cedis, being in addition to the thirteen billion cedis being paid to the customers of the failed banks.
Delivering State of the Nation’s Address in Parliament, Nana Akufo-Addo said he did think long and hard about paying all the customers of the failed banks, and believe they made the right decision, adding, all depositors of the savings and loans and microfinance institutions, including DKM which collapsed in 2015, will receive 100% of their deposits, too, once the validation exercise is concluded.
He said “We hope that lessons have been learned, and this will serve as a healthy caution to those who are offered unrealistic interest rates on deposits. I do not think it will be possible to repeat this grand pay-up in another lifetime. I want to assure Ghanaians that we are going to hold those who have been responsible for these failures of financial institutions (the supervisors and management of these institutions) accountable, a process that has already started. We expect that those whose job it is to supervise the banks and other financial institutions will do their jobs honestly and competently.”
The President said “I am very encouraged by the many corporate governance measures that have already been put in place by the Bank of Ghana, under the strong leadership of Governor Ernest Addison, to mitigate such bank failures in the future. Thanks to the banking sector clean-up, today I am happy to say that Ghana’s weak banking sector that we inherited is now well-capitalized, better managed, sound and liquid and the banks are now increasing their lending to the private sector to help propel the transformation of the economy Beyond Aid.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
