A legal consultant, Dr Eric Oduro Osae, says the Bank of Ghana (BoG) may have been misled by the report submitted by KPMG to collapse uniBank after declaring it insolvent.
Dr Osae who is also the Dean of Studies and Research at the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), explained that the six months administrative role assumed by KPMG at uniBank was to conduct a financial review, unlike an audit which is holistic and comprehensive.
The central bank on August 1, 2018, revoked the operating licence of uniBank and four other banks over liquidity and other challenges. The five banks have been merged by the Bank of Ghana into the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
However, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, a shareholder of the defunct uniBank Ghana Limited, has begun a fight to reclaim uniBank.
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He also wants a declaration that the license purportedly granted to the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited was not granted in accordance with Act 930 and therefore is “null and void.”
Governor of the BoG, Dr Ernest Addison, on the day of announcing the consolidation said uniBank Ghana Limited was being liquidated based on the findings of the financial review by its administrators, KPMG.
However, portions of the report issued by KPMG to the BoG disclosed that they did not get access to all the information needed and the BoG should consider the outcome of the report with cautiousness.
“As stated in our engagement letter unless otherwise stated in our report, we have not sought to verify information contained herein or performed procedures necessary to enable us to express an audit opinion on any of the financial or nonfinancial information contained in this report,” KPMG said.
Speaking on Adom FM’s Burning Issues on Wednesday, Dr Oduro Osae indicated that “anybody who wants to rely on that conclusion would have to go and do a further test and validate the areas KPMG could not validate before relying on the conclusion” due to the disclaimer issued by KPMG.
“BoG should have verified the unverifiable and invalidated areas that KPMG could not do and add to the conclusion before they proceed because if I were the lawyer for the bank, (uniBank), I would have punched holes in the KPMG report because if you don’t have every information, you don’t draw conclusion since if you draw conclusion and advise and on the basis of that the BoG takes decision and liquidates me, I will protest,” he added.
Dr Oduro Osae has also alleged there might be something the BoG has refused to reveal to Ghanaians but believes they would be compelled to spell out because of Dr Duffuor’s writ in the High Court.
Based on the supposed amount government owes uniBank, DDrOduro Osae has been asking if “indeed government owes uniBank and if that amount owed by the government is paid, would they have an improved capital adequacy ratio that would allow the bank to continue operating as a liquid bank? Have the shareholders in uniBank indicated clearly that they are ready to pump more money into the bank?” he quizzed.
The governance expert has also reprimanded the supervisory and regulatory department of the BoG for sleeping on their job to allow the collapse to occur.