uniBank collapse "planned and executed" - Prof. Gatsi

According to him, the collapse of uniBank was premeditated and executed by people in power.

He said the Central bank could have been saved uniBank if the government had honoured its debt obligations to the local bank.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Starr FM, he said "It is very clear that it was something that was planned and executed...You’d notice that after the official administrator advised that if the government pays its indebtedness to the bank, its problems would be solved, the bank of Ghana quickly took steps to derail that process, including the ADB issues and collapsed the bank."

Defunct uniBank Pulse Ghana

He said "If there is a change in government, this matter will resurrect if you are looking at it from the political angle, adding "What it does, again, is to undermine the confidence in the regulators of the financial system."

Background

The Bank of Ghana revoked the licenses of nine banks in its bid to clean up the sector. The BoG cited various reasons including capital adequacy ratio crisis, poor corporate governance, overexposure to related parties among others.

The Central bank in 2017 approved that the good assets of Capital Bank and UT bank be taken over by GCB Bank while it appointed Vish Ashiagbor of Pwc as receiver to make the most out of the remaining assets.

Barely a year on, the BoG revoked the licenses of five other banks – Unibank, Construction Bank, The Royal Bank, Beige Bank, and Sovereign Bank. Their good assets were merged to form Consolidated Bank, Ghana.

Some of the former owners have been contesting the BoG's decision. Notable among them is Unibank which was owned by a former Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor.