The Finance Committee of Parliament is set to open a full probe into the circumstances leading to the collapse of seven indigenous banks since 2017.
Ranking Member on the committee, Cassiel Ato Forson revealed this to Joy News on Wednesday; adding that the modalities of the probe will be made available to the public in due time.
He explained that the committee is yet to decide whether the intended probe will be open or whether it will be in camera.
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“We are yet to decide whether we will go public or not but what we can confirm is that we have decided to investigate,” Mr Forson told Joy News’ Joseph Opoku Gakpo.
Cassiel Ato Forson
The Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam explained that the committee hopes to find out the causes of the collapse of the seven banks; whether it was due to the negligence of some parties or some other factors.
“If indeed it was negligence, what is the way forward. We will have to draw some lessons out of it,” he said.
Mr Forson also noted that the Finance Committee hopes to find out why the Ken Ofori Ata-led Finance Ministry decided to bail out these banks considering the impact on the taxpayer.
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“We also want to know on whose authority The Consolidated Bank was capitalised and who did capitalised it,” he noted.
He explained that notwithstanding the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) probe into the issue, Parliament is interested in the case because they are the representative of the people.
Capital Bank and UT Bank collapsed in August 2017 and their assets and liabilities were taken over by state-owned GCB Bank.
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A year later, five other domestic banks, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, uniBank, The Royal Bank, and BEIGE Bank have been merged to form The Consolidated Bank Ghana.
These banks have all gone down due to liquidity challenges, the central bank noted.