Grace Akrofi
An advisor at the Governor’s department of the country’s apex bank, Mrs. Grace Akrofi, while speaking during a high-notched investment summit, the 3rd UK-Ghana Investment Summit in Accra passed an important remark.
Mrs. Akrofi could not have chosen a better item than the cracking of the whip by the Bank of Ghana (BOG) on wobbling banks which pushed the banking sector to the precipice and the expected outcome.
For the British business personalities who might have not grasped the logic of the action by the regulator, it was an opportune time to present a clear picture of the action being taken in the country to restore sanity to an otherwise chaotic banking sector and what better presentation than what Mrs. Akrofi did.
It has been a long period of convolution as bad politicians jumped into the fray with an assortment of mischievous theories about why the regulator did what it did. It was as though the regulator’s action had no basis as the mischievous elements sought to poison the political space; had there been no reason to crack the whip, the status quo would definitely have been maintained, of course.
Which government would want a smooth-sailing system disturbed with a major realignment such as happened in the consolidation of the endangered banks without basis?
The dividends from the regulator’s action are beginning to be prominent even though for some cynics they would have rather nothing was done about a collapsing banking sector.
Of course, we on the DAILY GUIDE subscribe to the fact of maintaining a few yet resilient banks than having a handful with no sense of direction.
We long for a day when the functioning of such critical sectors like banking would be spared the mischievous politicking as being played by opposition elements.
We doubt if such persons do not appreciate the importance of the BOG action. They understand the implications of the incessant bailout from the apex bank when best practices were not being applied yet they continued on their dirty tangent. It can only be imagined what would have befallen depositors’ savings, the banking sector and by extension, the economy, had the apex bank turned its watch in the opposite direction.
We feel disappointed when some of the owners of the distressed banks have the guts to spew the nonsense which has characterized the banking sector in the wake of the action by the BOG. It is as though the bailout they enjoyed did not matter. For how long do such persons, some of them politicians, expect the bailout phenomenon to endure under the circumstances.
Today, as Mrs. Akrofi rightly observed, the reforms being administered by the apex bank are giving the country a fresh bill of health and hence attracting investors.
No investor will be attracted to a country whose banking sector is in shambles, the situation we were inching to until the epic intervention.
Good things come at a cost. We would have been deceiving ourselves had we expected the cracking of the whip to go without the unproductive noise of those who plunged the banking sector into the avoidable malaise anyway.