Go And Arbitrate! Court Orders BOG -As confusion Rocks Unibank Collapse

An Accra High court has ordered the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to go back to the arbitration table with shareholders of UniBank over the revocation of the bank license in August 2018.

This is coming despite the fact that the Attorney General has dragged the founder of UniBank and former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffour and several others to court for allegedly misappropriating UniBank funds warranting the revocation of the bank’s operational license.

The court in its order today said the UniBank shareholders and the BoG whom they are contesting for unduly revoking their bank’s license should choose their own arbitrator following the backtracking of the earlier arbitrator, Retired Supreme Court Judge Prof Date-Baah.

The shareholders of UniBank are challenging the decision by the Central bank to revoke the license of the bank, saying the BoG appointed receiver-KPMG issued a questionable report about the financial status of the bank, forming the basis for the withdrawal of the bank’s license.

The peeved shareholders are also challenging the legality of the Akufo Addo administration and the BoG handing over their assets to the state-owned Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), which was formed to absorb the banks collapsed by the BoG.

The motion said further that the processes leading to the formation of the Consolidated bank were fraught with gross violations of the relevant laws of Ghana especially Banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930) and the company’s Act of 1963 (Act 179)

The 17 shareholders who dragged the government and the BoG to court insists that KPMG misled the Ministry of Finance to transfer large volumes of public funds to establish the new bank instead of just honouring their verified financial obligations to UniBank in order for the bank to continue running as a private entity.

UniBank claims its financial difficulties were as a direct result of the government refusing to settle obligations owed the bank on projects.