BoG's clean-up in Banking Sector is "bold and decisive" -IMF

The International Monetary Fund’s country representative to Ghana, Dr Natalia Koliadina, has described some recent actions taken by the Bank of Ghana in sanitising the sector, as bold and decisive.

There have been several criticisms on the Bank of Ghana's merger of five banks into a Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited, with some describing the move as politically motivated but the IMF Country Rep believes that measures are aimed at instilling confidence in the industry. In a recent interview with Journalists, she noted,

“I think that these issues probably have been accumulated over many years and it is actually to the great benefit of the economy that the Bank of Ghana has been taking these very bold and decisive measures”, she said.

“It is very timely because the last thing that you would like to see is diminishing confidence in the banking sector,” Dr.Koliadina added.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta has revealed that government has so far injected about 8billion bailout into the banking sector to protect the funds of depositors.

Read Also: We have spent GH₵8bn to protect depositors- Ken Ofori Atta

According to him, reports on the collapse of Banks have revealed a lot of abuse on the part of some shareholders of these banks, hence the move by the government to protect the interest of depositors and as well, reduce job losses.

BoG on Wednesday, August 1, 2018, collapsed five banks and merged them into what the BoG called 'Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited. The five banks, include Beige, Royal, Sovereign Bank, uniBank and the Construction Bank.

According to the Bank of Ghana, the reason for the merger includes liquidity challenges, the inability of the said banks to meet the Ghc400 million minimum Capital requirement, and the fact that some of these banks obtained their licenses under false pretenses and with nonexistent capital.

Read Also: Signs of collapse of banks were clear from 2012- Economist ...

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