NDC blames job losses in the banking sector – Gabby Otchere-Darko

General News of Saturday, June 8, 2019

Source: dailyguidenetwork.com

2019-06-08

A private lawyer and ruling party member, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, said the former National Democratic Congress (NDC) government should be blamed for the crisis in the banking sector that led to the loss of several jobs.

According to him, rather than criticize the New Patriotic Party's administration for job losses, Ghanaians should rather congratulate the "elephant" party for saving the funds of millions of depositors when cleaning up the banks from 2017 to 2018 .

Mr. Otchere-Darko made these remarks in his last article in response to the concerns of one of his friends who, he told himself, wondered if bankers who lost their jobs in the banking sector would ever vote for a NPP in the 2020 general election.

"Yesterday, a good friend told me that the NPP could not expect bank employees who lost their jobs as a result of the banking crisis to vote for NPP in 2020".

According to him, "my answer was," I guess it's understandable. But what about the more than one million depositors who would have completely lost their savings if the government of the nuclear power plants had not acted against the toxicity that would have eventually crushed the whole world? ;industry? "

He said, "I think we should better tell the story. GH ¢ 11.2 billion, which was not budgeted, was spent on securing depositors' funds in collapsed banks. Ironically, the government does not get any applause for that.

Explaining in more detail, he said that "note: this amount represents more than the installation of $ 2 billion Sinohydro that we have so much vaunted! It is 11.2 billion GH ¢ that could have repaired our roads, our schools, our drains, our health centers, etc. "

Think of this government that has been forced by circumstances that are not its own to spend a lot of money, not for its own priority programs, but for the negligence and alleged crimes of others, according to him.

"What was not boldly said is that the Democratic National Congress has ruined the banking system," he said.

He explained that "they (NDC) have led the banking sector to a near-collapse by creating a lax system that allowed various unconventional practices in the sector."

Mr. Otchere-Darko added that "this is what is being settled by the new patriotic party and that will be very expensive for you, the taxpayers! Know who to blame and who to rent.

"More specifically, under the NDC, according to the evidence, some banks engaged in the following activities that compromised their capital and liquidity, resulting in their collapse: insufficient regulation and irresponsible corporate governance practices. , circumventing banking legislation that has led some banks to obtain licenses under false pretenses, false financial reports as well as insider trading, "he said.

He added that the Bank of Ghana, under the NDC government, had effectively tolerated under-provisioning and related-party loans to the perverse extent that the bad practice irretrievably undermined the capital adequacy of the NDC. some of the banks.

He said "they were riding on limited stock of steroids and actually false pretense."

According to him, nonperforming loans have also increased since the banks ended up with debts inherited from the public sector, including debts of $ 2.4 billion from the energy sector, to the point that the oil trading also collapsed; a calamity that could have affected our economic ability to import even refined petroleum products for essential consumption.

"The Bank of Ghana, under the NDC government, tried to sort out the problem under the shredding mat, and handle the worsening situation by providing liquidity support to those failing banks in a way that which they should have known that it was simply not viable. "

He said that in order to cope with the crisis, the NPP government, when it took office, was going through a banking crisis that it had not created and that it had to quickly propose bold and innovative interventions to restore confidence in the sector and protecting Ghanaian depositors. businesses and banks.

He added that the Bank of Ghana, with the support of the government, had launched a comprehensive and innovative reform program to clean up the sector and strengthen the regulatory and supervisory framework to strengthen the resilience of the banking sector.

"These are actions of a government concerned with the destiny of the country, the destiny of its economy and the well-being of the population," he said.

Specifically, the current government has undertaken the following activities to save the day: the government and the Bank of Ghana intervened to prevent a banking crisis by injecting $ 11.2 billion of public funds into the financial sector. these measures have not only saved the deposits of one million one hundred and forty seven thousand three hundred and sixty-six (1,147,366) Ghanaians and their enterprises and the people they employed, but also to minimize job losses in the banking sector, he said.

He insisted that "we should not underestimate the monumental rescue work the NPP has done for the banking sector in Ghana. We will see the benefits for a long time. "

He said that "at the end of this comprehensive clean-up exercise (banks, savings and credit, microfinance and badet management), more than 14 billion of your money would have been spent by Ghanaian taxpayers. "