Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has stated that the banking sector clean-up exercise saved Ghana’s banking sector from a total collapse while preserving jobs.
Addressing the clergy in the Northern Region, he argued that the government was stuck between allowing the deposits of over 4.6 million depositors to perish or revoke their license and using GH¢25 billion to safeguard depositors’ monies. They chose the latter, which he says safeguarded the deposits of millions and saved jobs.
“One of the biggest nightmares I had was that it was clear that if we didn’t move to rationalize the banking system and shut down some of these banks, the whole system was going to collapse. So we had to find GH¢25 billion to save the banking system. And we saved the deposits of 4.6 million depositors by just moving their deposits to new banks like the Consolidated Bank. Otherwise, they would have all collapsed, and we would have lost so many jobs” Bawumia said.
He added that some people may still be facing difficulties retrieving their locked-up money due to the nature of the companies they invested their money.
“For some of the securities like Gold Coast Securities and so on, these were investments that were made by people and not bank deposits and people basically make their own evaluations of the risks involved when investing in certain institutions. Sometimes, when they make a lot of money, you don’t hear complaints but when they lose money then we may hear some complaints,” he reiterated.