Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has said the Ministry of Finance is making arrangements to refund money to customers of companies liquidated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the financial sector clean-up exercise.
According to Dr Bawumia, the measure is aimed at providing relief to affected investors while promoting transparency and accountability within financial markets.
Addressing a professional body in Kumasi as part of his visit to the Ashanti Region, Dr Bawumia emphasised his government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring investor protection.
“It seems the finance minister expects some payments to be made to customers of liquidated companies,” he stressed.
He said multiple negotiations had taken place to provide compensation to affected customers.
“In regards to Gold Coast Securities and others, it is on our agenda and I believe Treasury will also be looking at it. We are negotiating with affected customers and look forward to payments.”
Dr Bawumia said the government was not responsible for making such payments but would initiate them out of sympathy with the hapless investors affected by the clean-up exercise.
“Technically the government is not responsible but the minister will be making some of these payments out of empathy and sympathy for the people who have invested in some of these institutions.”
Cleaning up the banking sector
The government, under the supervision of Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, began cleaning up the banking sector in 2017.
The measures reduced the number of banks from 34 to 23 and revoked the licenses of 347 microfinance institutions, 15 savings and loan associations and eight financial institutions.
Many of the institutions whose licences were revoked were found to have had varying degrees of corporate governance deficiencies.
The estimated total cost of the state’s fiscal intervention, excluding interest payments, from 2017 to 2019 was estimated at GH¢16.4 billion.
In 2020, the government claimed to have spent about 21 billion cedis on clean-up efforts in the banking sector.
Some financial institutions opposed to the cancellation have filed lawsuits against the government, and the cases are still ongoing.
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