A Financial Analyst, Samuel Obeng has dismissed the claim by the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) that the Governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr Ernest Addison lied that all customers of the failed banks and of Specialised Deposit-taking Institutions (SDIs) had been paid their deposits.
He said the governor did not tell President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo when he visited the central bank last year that all customers had been paid the deposits contrary to the claims by the PPP.
Mr Obeng recounted in a telephone conversation with 3news.com Tuesday January 18 that Dr. Ernest Addison the all customers the failed banks had received their deposits in full.
He also indicated stating that over ninety five percent (95%) of customers of Specialised Deposit-taking Institutions (SDIs), which were affected by the banking sector clean-up have received their deposits.
According to the Dr. Ernest Addison, the first phase of the banking sector clean-up involved the revocation of licenses of nine (9) banks, for which all depositors were paid in full.
“The second phase has to do with the SDIs – these are the savings and loans, microfinance institutions and finance houses. In their case, for individual depositors who have been fully paid, the data that we have suggests that more than 95% of depositors have been fully paid,” he said.
The Governor continued, “So there are just about 5% depositors who have large amounts, these are the high net worth individuals that were settled with loans which were to be retired over 5 years. So, we think that most of it has been done.”
Dr. Ernest Addison made this known on Tuesday, 25th August 2020, when the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, visited the Bank of Ghana to familiarize himself with the operations of the Bank.
“The Government has provided a bond worth GH¢1.7 billion, for which we have monetized GH¢700 million. So, the receiver is also working at clearing the last few customers that are left in that segment. So, I think that we have made a lot of progress, Mr. President, with this depositor issue,” he added.
On helping to ensure the maintenance of a strong banking sector in the country, and to prevent the recurrence of a banking crisis, Governor Addison told President Akufo-Addo that the first step taken has been to pass the new corporate governance directive.
This, he said, had become necessary because, at the heart of the financial sector crises, was a breakdown in corporate governance in the various banks whose licenses were revoked.
“The second one has to do with misreporting of data, because of a lot of falsification of data by the financial institutions to the Central Bank. So we have brought in a new technology which will allow us to get the data directly from sources, so that no human interventions will be in there to distort the data that they send,” the Governor indicated.
The third step, he added, “has to do with the capital verification process, because a lot of the banks reported that they had capital when, in fact, they didn’t have any capital at all.”
He continued, “So we have reviewed the entire capital verification process of the bank, and it’s almost impossible now for us to have a bank that doesn’t have any capital, and yet it’s allowed to operate, and, of course, in addition to that, for all the staff of the banking solution department we have had a lot of training programmes with the IMF and other technical assistance have been provided.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana