LPG blames banking crisis on past BoG officials
The Founder and leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Mr Percival Kofi Akpaloo, says the inability of the past Bank of Ghana (BoG) executives to undertake proper supervision in the financial sector has led to the current financial insecurity in the banking industry.
“As a party, we believe that if the former BoG Governor and his officials had done their work well, Ghana would not have found itself in this present state where many banks and microfinance companies have been closed down,” Mr Akpaloo said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.
His comment comes in the wake of the BoG’s clean-up of the financial space where it had revoked the licences of nine universal banks, 347 microfinance companies of which 155 had already ceased operation, 39 microcredit companies or money lenders, 15 savings and loans companies, eight finance house companies and two non-bank financial institutions.
Don’t spare them
Mr Akpaloo said it would be a mistake on the part of the state to spare any former BoG executive whose “negligence has brought so much pressure on the country’s financial sector”.
He said all the suffering the Ghanaian people “are going through in the financial sector should be laid at the door post of the former BoG officials under former President John Mahama’s administration”.
In Mr Akpaloo’s view, people must be made to face the full rigours of the laws when their actions create losses, adding that “how else do you want people to learn to do the right thing, if you do not punish those who do the wrong?”
He said if the past BoG officials had done proper supervision, the issue with the Menzgold situation would never have happened.
“Ghana’s financial insecurity is happening because of the actions of the former BoG officials under the previous administration”.
Commendation
Mr Akpaloo commended the current BoG administration for initiating proper supervision in the financial sector and said the work being done, although painful to the people, is needful to the country’s economic growth.
He said the LPG was excited that new measures were being put in place to ensure that the financial sector in the country regained its full strength.
Mr Akpaloo, therefore, called on the BoG to continue to undertake a regular supervision in the banking and finance sector to ensure that nothing illegal occurred to drive Ghana back to the situation again.
“BoG need to continue to open its eyes so that any issue that can spell doom for Ghana’s financial sector is curtailed,” he added.