Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and former President John Mahama
Vice-President
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia yesterday took another swipe at former President Mahama
with regard to his attempt to cause disaffection with government in the wake of
the banking sector clean-up exercise done by the Bank of Ghana recently.
It
follows claims by Mr. Mahama on August 22 that the revocation of licences of
some insolvent banks and other savings and loans companies by the central bank
was not necessary, and that the government had taken a chaotic path in handling
the issue.
The
former President had said specifically: “Was the revocation the best option at
this circumstance or there was no other option? Our central bank chose the
chaotic situation with accompanying huge debts, and the government had no clue
on how to clear it. Revocation of licences would have been the last resort and
not the first resort. No country is immune to crisis in the financial sector.”
Launching
the $5 billion affordable housing project being financed by the United Nations
Office of Project Services (UNOPS) to be undertaken by Sustainable Housing
Solutions (SHS) and their Ghanaian counterparts at Afiaman, near Amasaman, in
the Greater Accra Region yesterday, Dr. Bawumia said Mr. Mahama’s tenure was characterised
by “outright regulatory failure and cronyism” and that led to the biggest
financial crisis ever in Ghana.
He
said: “Mr. Mahama chooses, as is characteristic of him, to rewrite history. Perhaps,
he also has not caught up with the collective wisdom around the world that
bailing out insolvent banks does not cure the canker that soon rears its head
again.”
“Is
he not aware of the reforms around the world (including outright statutory prohibition
of bailouts in some jurisdictions) to ensure that financial institutions that
reach the point of no viability are made to exit the financial system in an orderly
fashion even before they reach insolvency? Does he not know that keeping ‘dead’
financial institutions alive by public funds under the pretext of ‘too big to
fail’ destroys the financial system and the economy as a whole?” he added.
The
Vice-President said: “Actually, many of the financial institutions which had
their licences revoked could not even pay customers their deposits of as little
as GH¢300; has John Mahama not taken the trouble to learn from the experiences
of countries all around the world in financial crisis management?”
He
added that “obviously not, and hence his admission that he has had to recently
set up a Policy Working Group on Finance and Economy that is now studying and
analyzing the situation with a view to coming up with pragmatic steps. This
shows clearly that the former President does not have anything meaningful to
offer Ghanaians.”
“Mr.
Mahama and his NDC have nothing useful to offer the Ghanaian
people, and should apologize to the good people of Ghana for causing their pains
in the first place,” he stressed.
“Former President Mahama, who now would like Ghanaians to believe he knows how to stabilize a banking sector, kept banks in their comatose state until they died instead of allowing the regulator to do its work independently as required by law to administer the prompt interventions that were needed to ensure that the banks recovered,” he said adding “the good people of this country are, however, not as gullible and ignorant as he likes to believe and we do not all have short memories.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent
