Business News of Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Source: primenewsghana.com
2020-02-11
Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia
The Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia at a town hall meeting in Kumasi today said the cleanup exercise in the banking sector last year showed the competence of the Akufo-Addo government and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
In 2019 the government with supervision from the Bank of Ghana went on a clean up-exercise of the banking, specialized deposit-taking (SDI), and non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) sectors.
President Akufo-Addo said the prudent measures taken by his administration and the Bank of Ghana to save and sanitise the banking sector are beginning to yield positive results.
Bawumia says the National Democratic Congress (NDC) would not even have had the competence to sanitize the sector and it would have collapsed totally if there were in power.
“They didn’t even have the space find money to sanitize the sector, left to the NDC our banking system would have collapsed by now. They are now going around saying they will pay depositors their money, you couldn’t even pay teacher allowance and you are saying you can pay depositors. If they could have done it they would have done it a long time ago. We are cleaning up the banking sector and we are now moving into the real sector of the economy”.
John Mahama who is the flagbearer of the NDC, however, expressed concern over the effect the collapse of banks and other local financial institutions is having on individuals, businesses and especially thousands of employees who lost their jobs in the process.
In 2019 the BoG revoked the licences of 9 universal banks, 347 microfinance companies, 39 microcredit companies, 15 savings and loans companies, eight finance house companies, and two non-bank institutions.
According to the BoG they are committed to ensuring that the banking, SDI, and NBFI sectors remain resilient, inclusive, and supportive of Ghana’s economic growth trajectory.