Parliament decides not to probe directors of collapsed banks

Parliament’s Finance Committee will not be inviting the directors of any of the collapsed banks when it begins its probe into the matter.

The Committee is set to begin its probe into the collapse of seven indigenous banks on Wednesday, September 5.

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Last year, the UT Bank and Capital Bank both collapsed, with the state-owned GCB Bank taking over all their assets and liabilities.

Two months ago, five other indigenous banks were liquidated and merged to form the Consolidated Bank after flouting various banking laws.

The five banks include, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, BEIGE Bank, The Royal Bank and uniBank.

Parliament’s Finance Committee was subsequently tasked to probe the collapse of the aforementioned banks.

However, Chair of the Committee, Dr Asibey Yeboah, now has disclosed that they will not be inviting directors of any of the collapsed banks during the probe.

According to him, they will be meeting with the Bank of Ghana because it closed down the seven banks and Finance Ministry because they voted money to capitalize the newly created Consolidated Bank.

He said the Committee prefers to act in its own way, rather than invite persons based on media accounts.

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“We have made it clear from the onset that we are inviting the institutions to have an in-camera hearing to garner first-hand information from them,” Dr. Yeboah said.

“These are issues that we have to interrogate and get first-hand information from these institutions. I don’t know about executive directors…on what basis…on media accounts or what?” he added.

The decision by Parliament’s Finance Committee is likely to spark uproar among majority of the public, who had hoped that those who supervised the collapse of the bank would be probed.