Defunct Bank Directors Come Home to Roost -Expose Ken Ofori-Atta’s Personal interest in Banking sector Clean-up

Founders of some of the banks that were closed down for alleged mismanagement are beginning to come out of hibernation, and are revealing damning evidence that faults the personal interest of the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta than a fair banking reform

In the past few days, the Founder of UT Bank, Prince Kofi Amoabeng and that of Capital Bank, William Ato Essien have granted rare TV interviews spilling the beans about their relationship with the current Finance Minister, and hinting at the possibility of his powerful hands responsible for the revocation of their banking licenses.

Earlier, individuals like Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom and former Finance Minister Dr. Kwabena Dufour have hinted that the closure of their banks- GN Bank and Unibank-was a targeted hatchet job. These individuals have dragged both the government and the Bank of Ghana to court in a series of lawsuits facing the Akufo Addo government’s inspired banking sector cleanup.

Ato Essien on Wednesday in a face-to-face interview on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana disclosed how Ken Ofori-Atta and his partner Keli Gadzekpo had approached him to buy off Capital Bank, saying his bank couple have been poorly managed if the man who became finance minister saw the viability of the bank.

 “If our bank was that bad, our current Finance Minister together with the CEO of Enterprise Group, Kelly Gadzekpo,” won’t have come to his office to say they “were interested in buying the bank,” Ato Essien revealed.

A few Days Earlier, the founder of UT Bank had revealed how his bank was deliberately caused to collapse by the Bank of Ghana (BoG). During a number of rare public pronouncement a few weeks ago, he explained how the BoG had clandestinely chased away an investor who was willing to pump in needed capitalisation to allow UT Bank meet up with capital adequacy requirements set by the Central Banks for banks in 2018.

An almost tearful Amoabeng narrated how UT Bank had introduced the said investor to the BoG and had received assurances from the BoG. However, on the blindside of UT Bank, the BoG wrote to UT Bank’s investor that they will not allow it invest in UT Bank.

“…a letter was written by the Bank of Ghana to our investor that they didn’t like the investment. We were not even copied, but that investor was our investor,” Amoabeng explained, insisting that his bank was unfairly targeted. He has hinted that President Akufo Addo and Ken Ofori-Atta, while in opposition had sought loans from UT Bank.

Critics speculate that UT Bank may have been targeted because of its refusal to fund political campaigns of the NPP.

In August 2017, the central bank revoked the license of two commercial banks – UT Bank and Capital Bank. Subsequently, in 2018, the BoG further revoked more banks-approximately seven (7) banks in total. These banks have been consolidated into a government entity called the Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) and have gulped almost US$ 2 billion in bailouts from the government.

So far over 300 financial institutions in Ghana have lost their operating licenses and several thousands of workers have lost their jobs due to the controversial financial sector reforms