Suspended General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC), Atik Mohammed, has lambasted Members of Parliament for their decision to hold an in-camera inquiry into the infamous bank collapse.
During deliberations on the issue by Parliament, the legislators agreed to keep the Finance Committee's probe into the failure of seven (7) banks from the public eye.
This is in spite of numerous petitions to the Speaker to open up the process and make it public.
Seven banks have collapsed within August 2017 and August 2018.
The first two, UT Bank and Capital Bank, went under in August 2017 and were taken over by GCB Bank with the blessing of the Bank of Ghana.
The other five - UNIBank, The Beige Bank, The Construction Bank, The Royal Bank and Sovereign Bank - went bust two weeks shy of a year after the first two failed.
On 1 August 2018, the central bank announced the fusion of the five other struggling banks into a totally new entity called Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
In total, the state is spending over GHS8billion of taxpayers’ money in rescuing the banks.
Parliament's probe of the collapsed banks started on Wednesday, 5 September 2018.
Representatives from the Bank of Ghana, Consolidated Bank, KPMG, PwC and the Ministry of Finance are expected to appear before the hearing. But owners and directors of the seven banks that have collapsed, some under controversial circumstances, will not be invited.
Officials of the Bank of Ghana, including the Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison, appeared before the committee on Wednesday morning.
Contributing to a panel discussion on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", Atik Mohammed posited that for the sake of transparency and accountability, Parliamentarians shouldn't hold the hearing in-camera.
"....there is loss of confidence in the banking sector due to the collapse of the bank, therefore having it in the full glare of the general public would inspire confidence or roll back the wheels of confidence that was in our banking sector. But to do these things in camera, I mean I don’t know what you’re going to ask them and what they will say," he stated.
Atik questioned the logic in the decision by the Parliamentarians, asking "how do I get inspired that indeed what Parliament is doing, at the end of the day, should motivate all of us…what is there to hide? What secret is there to hide?”
“I’m against this idea of doing an in-camera probe…It doesn’t serve any purpose. You see, banking is about confidence”, he stressed.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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Atik Mohammed is Correct!!!! OOOOOO ; these hearings should not be in camera so that it can expose certain nation wreckers masquerading as the elite of society including pastors ; jurnalist ; politicians ; judges and lawyers but with criminal minds ; the collaspse of these banks was a master mind deliberate criminal iniatitive by the Directors of these banks including Mensah -Otabil and other peole to steal from depositors and the tax payer ; whe should they heard on the quite or in camera ; to me it is wrong besides how many times has any serious investigating by parliament committee been acted upon ; Elvis Afriyie Anrah and Jon Mahama stole $3milion dollar during the world cup ;what happened to the investigation -NOthing because Elvis Afrityie Anrah ; Nyantyiki and other criminals are walking about and the same happen with these bank Directors because Nana Addo is a frined Mensah -Otabil and others and will cover them ; the money is lost and the youth should rise up NOW !!!!!because Nana Will never do anything about this ***barred word*** .
Atik Mohammed stopped mixing politics with economics.For people not to loose confidence in our banking sector, it appropriate to deal with some problems behind closed doors.If you do not understand this simply economic strategy then stop disturbing our ears.No investor will put his or her investment in a country that experience bad banking sector, hence the government has step in to resolve the matter once and for all.