70% Of Jobs Affected By Banking Crisis Saved – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has revealed that the rationalisation of about 70% of Job affected by the recent banking crisis has been saved.

The Bank of Ghana recently fused uniBank together with The Sovereign Bank, The Royal Bank, The Beige Bank and The Construction Bank to form the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG).

The management of the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG) was to lay off an estimated 1,700 workers.

Out of the number, 700 are mobile bankers of the now-defunct The Beige Bank, while 1,000 were former employees of The Royal Bank, The Construction Bank, uniBank and Sovereign Bank.

The fusion of the five banks followed the takeover of two other local banks: UT Bank and Capital Bank by GCB Bank in August 2017 with the blessing of the regulator after it emerged that they were in dire straits.

In total, seven local banks have gone under, as the Bank of Ghana’s 31 December 2018 deadline for all universal banks to recapitalise from the GHS120 million to GHS400 million draws closer.

Responding to questions at an encounter with the media at the Jubilee House in Accra on Wednesday, 19 December 2018, Nana Akufo-Addo said his government has put in place measures to formalise the economy to increase revenue mobilisation for onward development.

”The decisions taken by the Bank of Ghana and the financial support government provided through the establishment and funding of Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited ensured that, the deposits of more than 1.5 million customers with deposit values of GHc10 billion and about 70 percent of the 5000 jobs in the affected banks were affected” – he said.

President Akufo-Addo reiterated that the rationalisation and clean-up of the financial sector were necessary to safeguard the health and strength of the economy.

“I have said it before, and let me reiterate, that those responsible for the sequence of activities that led to the ‘crisis’ will face the full brunt of the law, if they are found to have broken the law, and suffer all the consequences prescribed by law,” the President stressed.