Mahama should go and read BoG's report - Bawumia jabs Mahama

The 2024 Presidential Candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has slammed former President John Mahama, claiming that he is uninformed of the 2017 banking sector cleanup.

Bawumia made these remarks during a press conference on Sunday, August 25, in response to Mr Mahama's comments regarding the exercise that resulted in the collapse of numerous financial institutions in the country.

The NDC flagbearer for election 2024 has promised, among other things, to revisit the closed financial institutions and, if required, restore their licenses.

Mr Mahama has questioned why the government would spend so much money to close institutions that could have been helped to stand on their own two feet for considerably less, given that they employed a large number of people.

However, Dr. Bawumia, who was taken aback by Mahama's promise, stated that the government's involvement rescued the deposits of 4.6 million bank customers.

According to him, several banks had committed severe violations such as lending over legal limits, abusing 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.”

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.

Source: Lead News Online