Banking mess: I blame BoG for not acting responsibly years back – Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo has spoken against the slack pace at which the Bank of Ghana (BoG) works and applies the laws, saying the Central bank’s sluggishness in the past has been the main reason behind the sudden crash of the financial sector.

The Central bank on Friday revoked the licenses of 15 Savings and Loans Companies and 8 finance Houses which it said were insolvent and could no longer meet the obligations of customers.

The Bank of Ghana also appointed Eric Nipah as a Receiver for the specified institutions in line with section 123 (2) of Act 930.

According to a statement from BoG, “The revocation of the licences of these institutions has become necessary because they are insolvent even after a reasonable period within which the Bank of Ghana has engaged with them in the hope that they would be recapitalized by their shareholders to return them to solvency.”

The statement added, “It is the Bank of Ghana’s assessment that these institutions have no reasonable prospects of recovery, and that their continued existence poses severe risks to the stability of the financial system and to the interests of their depositors.”

These actions were taken pursuant to Section 123 (1) of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), which requires the Bank of Ghana to revoke the licence of a Bank or Specialised Deposit-Taking Institution (SDI) where the Bank of Ghana determines that the institution is insolvent.”

However, the President in his brief remarks has noted that the BoG’s inability to act responsibly in the past is largely the reason why the country under his watch has had to engage in a cleanup exercise in the financial sector.



“If the Bank of Ghana in the years before had acted responsibly and dealt with some of these issues that they had to deal with, we would not have gotten to the situation we are now” the President said in a remarks while addressing members of the Council of State at his second meeting with the Council.

He said government is yet to determine how much of state funds it’ll commit to the payment of depositors whose funds are locked up in the 23 Savings and Loans companies and finance houses closed down by the BoG.

According to him, government had already spent over GHC13 billion of public funds in paying depositors in the banking sector.