The Deputy Attorney-General, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, has inaugurated the new Governing Council of the Chartered Institute of Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners (CRIP Ghana) with a call on them to prioritise law reform as part of its core mandate.
That, he said, was essential to adapting the country's insolvency framework to local realities.
Dr Srem-Sai made the call at the Law House in Accra last Friday when he inaugurated the 13-member Council.
He led the team, which was made up of bankers, accountants, lawyers, private sector representatives, among others, to administer their official oath and oath of secrecy.
Unique
Speaking after the inauguration, Dr Srem-Sai said that because the country's insolvency law had largely been modelled on legislation from other jurisdictions, there were peculiarities in the local context that the drafters could not have anticipated.
He said the Council's law reform function should, therefore, not be treated as an afterthought, but as a continuous exercise to align the law with international standards while addressing Ghana's unique circumstances.
Dr Srem-Sai added that the work of the institute was underpinned by the broader principle of trust and confidence in the financial system, drawing a comparison with public confidence in banks.
"When investors are assured that mechanisms existed to protect their money in the event of business failure, they were more willing to invest, which in turn benefited the economy," he said.
He outlined the Council's core functions as promoting insolvency and restructuring practice, training practitioners, certifying persons seeking to practise in the field, sensitising the public to the relevance of the profession, and driving law reform.
Impact
The President of CRIP Ghana, Felix Addo, traced the institute's roots to 2006, when it was formed in response to the absence of enabling legislation to rescue temporarily distressed but viable businesses in the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown.
He said the association had worked over two decades, largely voluntarily, to secure amendments to the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992) and the passage of the Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act, 2020 (Act 1015), which established CRIP Ghana as a statutory body.
Mr Addo paid tribute to founder members and past contributors to the process, some of whom had since died, and said the Council would build on that foundation.
He said the institute recently secured the Bank of Ghana's support in addressing a major regulatory hurdle facing distressed companies: the difficulty of accessing post-commencement financing once a company was classified as a non-performing loan account.
The CRIP Ghana President said resolving this had been necessary to give distressed businesses access to working capital during restructuring.
"We will continue to work with stakeholders, including the Registrar-General's Department, the Bank of Ghana, the Institute of Chartered Accountants and other professional bodies, to advance advocacy, training and further law reform," Mr Addo stated..
