Banking sector clean-up exercise suppresses the collapse of the sector

Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia has stated that the banking sector clean-up exercise has rescued Ghana’s banking system from collapsing.

According to him, the NPP government led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffu Addo had to make the difficult decision of allocating GHc 25 billion towards revoking the licenses of 420 banks and specialized deposit-taking institutions to safeguard the deposits of over 4.6 million depositors.

“One of the biggest nightmares I had was that it was clear that if we didn’t move to rationalise the banking system and shut down some of these banks, the whole system was going to collapse. So we had to find GH¢25 billion to save the banking system, and we saved the deposits of 4.6 million depositors by just moving their deposits to new banks like the Consolidated Bank. Otherwise, they would have all collapsed, and we would have lost so many jobs,” he said.

Vice President who is also the flagbearer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) made these remarks when he was answering questions during a meeting with the clergy in Tamale in the Northern Region on Thursday May 16, 2024.

He noted that some individuals may still encounter challenges in retrieving their locked-up funds due to the nature of the businesses or companies where they invested their money.

“For some of the securities like Gold Coast Securities and so on, these were investments that were made by people and not bank deposits, and people basically make their own evaluations of the risks involved when investing in certain institutions. Sometimes, when they make a lot of money, you don’t hear complaints but when they lose money then we may hear some complaints,” he mentioned.

Story By: Alhassan Yakubu |www.diamondfmonline.com |Ghana.