Flag bearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has said the next NDC government will restore licenses of Banks that were unjustly cancelled by the Akufo-Addo-led government.
“Let me restate what I said in Ho during the launch of my campaign for flag bearer, we shall promote robust local participation in our banking, financial, telecommunications, tourism, mining, agriculture, agribusiness, and manufacturing sectors to grow the economy and create sustainable employment for the youth,” Mr. Mahama said in his post-election acceptance speech at the University of Development Studies (UDS) on Monday, 15 May 2023.
“We will restore indigenous Ghanaian investment in the finance and banking sector and create a tiered banking system that will serve various segments of the market.
“We will give the opportunity for experienced banking hands who were laid off, to secure their careers once more and move from the menial jobs they were forced into.
“As far as practicable, banking licenses that were unjustly cancelled by this Government would be restored,” Mr. Mahama assured.
In 2017, the Akufo-Addo government collapsed several indigenous banks in what became known as the banking crisis rendering many bankers jobless.
On August 14, 2017, the Bank of Ghana in a press release announced its approval for the takeover of two indigenous banks, UT Bank and Capital Bank by GCB Bank.
The Central Bank cited the insolvency of the banks in question, as the major reason for the revocation of their operation licenses.
According to BoG, upon several agreements with the banks to increase their capital requirements, managers of the banks failed. Consequently, to protect customers, the licenses of the banks were revoked under a Purchase and Assumption transaction with GCB Bank.
A year later, on August 1, 2018, the BoG announced the consolidation of five indigenous banks to form a new bank called the Consolidated Bank Ghana. The five collapsed banks included Unibank, The Royal Bank, Beige Bank, Sovereign Ban, and Heritage Bank. The same reason of insolvency was cited as a cause of the collapse of these banks.
On the collapse of Heritage Bank, the BoG explained that the majority shareholder, Mr Seidu Agongo, among other things, used proceeds realised from alleged fraudulent contracts he executed for the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), for which former COCOBOD CEO, Dr Stephen Opuni and he, are being tried, to set up the bank.
