Banks don’t regard BoG – Ace Ankomah

A legal practitioner Ace Ankomah has said that one of the reasons for the collapse of the five merged banks by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) was due to lack of supervision by the central bank.
According to him, the BoG issued banking and financial license to the banks but
failed to supervise them during operations in the country.
Speaking on joy FM’s Newsfile the Lawyer said, “If you are going to distribute banking and financial service license then you ought to have the expertise or staff to monitor them,” he established.
“In Ghana the staff to supervise must be on top of their game. So if you can’t monitor them you are literally throwing these to the unsuspecting Ghanaians and as we have found, a Ghanaian will invest in wherever he thinks he will make money and so you must then cut your banks according to the size of your ability to supervise. If you can’t supervise 50 (banks) you don’t give 50 and then encourage people to consolidate,” he added.
Reiterating how some banks also failed to regard rules and regulation of the central bank, Mr Ankomah indicated that, “We have a country where the central bank can say that we have reviewed our status and we think that these acts are in breach of the law and the people (bank owners) come and say we ‘make we sleep’ and poke their finger into the eyes of the central bank.”
Early this month, The Bank of Ghana revoked the licenses of five banks in the country and merged them into a Consolidated Bank Limited.
The five banks are The Royal Bank, Beige Bank, Sovereign Bank Limited, Construction Bank and uniBank Ghana Limited.
Dr Ernest Addison, BoG Governor, who disclosed the merging of the banks was due to the failure by the banks overcome its financial plight which was worsening and also claimed some affected banks procured their operational licenses through dubious means.