Vice President and 2024 Presidential Candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has taken a swipe at former President John Mahama, suggesting that he lacks an understanding of the 2017 banking sector clean-up.
The Vice President said this at a meet-the-press encounter on Sunday, August 25, where he responded to comments made by Mr Mahama about the exercise that led to the collapse of several financial institutions in the country.
The NDC flagbearer for election 2024 has among other things promised to take a second look at the financial institutions that were closed down and restore the licenses of some of them where necessary.
Mr Mahama is not convinced why the government will spend so much to close down institutions that could have been supported to stand on their feet considering that they were employing a huge number of people.
But Dr Bawumia, who’s shocked at Mahama’s promise, stated that the government’s action saved the deposits of 4.6 million bank customers by that intervention.
According to him, many of the banks had engaged in serious breaches such as extending loans beyond legal limits, misusing capital, and investing in private properties.
“We saved the deposits of 4.6 million bank depositors who really were going to lose their deposits if those banks were not saved. I don’t understand whether the former president has taken his time to understand the banking sector. Some atrocious things and this is why these banks had to be saved.
“They were not collapsed, they were merged into other banks and no banking depositor lost 1 cedi, everybody maintained. But very bad things happened, some of the banks broke all the rules and extended loans way above the single obligor limits.”
“They were given, in some cases 1 billion by the Bank of Ghana to help them out of the mess and they only got deeper into the situation. Other banks were given capital to save the situation, and they used that money to set up Capital Bank, instead of rescuing the problem that they had. They took the money from the central bank and set up another business which also collapsed. Some took money and invested in private properties.”
“So, it was against this background the governor came to report, and this was one of my nightmares in the last eight years. Most people didn’t understand how close we were to a collapse of the entire banking system. This is how we had to merge many of these banking sectors into other banks and we saved 4. 6 million depositors.”
In Dr Bawumia’s view, the banking sector was almost collapsing culminating in the merger of some banks to prevent a complete crisis.
He wants Mr Mahama to acquaint himself with the full details of the crisis by reading the reports of the Receiver and the Bank of Ghana before commenting.
“I’ll ask the former president if he hasn’t read, to go and read the receiver’s report or the BoG’s report and acquaint himself before making any further comments on matters he clearly doesn’t understand.