Dr. Kwabena Duffuor
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has directed the setting up of a seven-member committee to go into petitions presented to Parliament by former Minister of Finance and founder of the defunct uniBank, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, and his counterpart for the defunct UT Bank Limited, Prince Kofi Amoabeng.
The two, whose insolvent financial institutions were taken over by the state as part of the banking sector clean up exercise in 2017, are calling for probe into the actions of the regulators.
They managed to lay the petitions yesterday in the House through the NDC MP for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga, who had done so through Order 76 (1) of the Standing Orders of Parliament.
The Speaker then proceeded to tell the House how the petitions should be handled and subsequently directed for a seven-member committee (made up of four members from the Majority NPP side and three members from the Minority NDC side) to be set up.
According to Mr. Bagbin, he admitted the petitions as part of efforts to encourage citizen-participation in the governance of the country, noting that “a citizen has a concern and that citizen thinks that he should petition Parliament.”
“By our rules when a citizen petitions Parliament it must be done through a Member of Parliament (MP). The MP has two options. One is to come through the direction of the Speaker and lay it or through, after the admission of the Speaker, a motion,” Mr. Bagbin indicated.
Scanty Rules
“Our rules are scanty on how to go about it and therefore we have to work out the process and procedure of handling petitions. We are trying to do it in the new Standing Orders, but as at now the rules are quite scanty,” Mr. Bagbin pointed out, while addressing concerns raised by the NPP MP for Okaikoi Central, Patrick Yaw Boamah, that both petitions were a subject matter in court.
The Speaker added that the Order 93 which was quoted by the Okaikoi Central MP related to debates on the floor, and indicated that “it is not for the Speaker to be a jury and a judge at the same time.”
Order 93
“Mr. Speaker doesn’t take the decision for the House. The House takes the decision and so when we get to that stage, and when you look at the part that Order 93 falls, it has nothing to do with admission of papers, petitions or statements,” said Mr. Bagbin.
He explained that the Order 93 “deals with the proceedings on the floor of the House, and when we get there and the issues are raised the chair will be in a better position to rule on that.
“In the circumstance, I propose that we set up a committee to go into the petitions and report to the House. This will make the House have the opportunity to deliberate on it.
“The report of the committee will come as a motion and then we can debate it. If at the end of the day we get the sense that there is a matter pending before court, we will be guided by the content of the speeches that members will make on the floor and that is the time that we can apply Order 93.”
Main Petition
Dr. Duffuor of the defunct uniBank and Mr. Amoabeng of the defunct UT Bank Limited have called for a probe into the actions of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
The two, in separate petitions, called for a major parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the BoG and the GSE for the revocation of their banking licences.
They want Parliament to investigate what they consider to be a disregard to the rules of administrative justice guaranteed under Article 23 of the 1992 Constitution.
The calling for the probe is being done at the time their respective cases are undergoing both civil and criminal trials in court.
Dr. Duffuor wants Parliament, in particular, to investigate the conduct of the central bank in respect of the takeover and appointment of an official administrator for uniBank Ghana Limited as well as the circumstances surrounding the revocation of the banking licence of the bank.
Mr. Amoabeng, on the other hand, wants the legislative arm to investigate the conduct of the BoG and the GSE for the revocation of UT Bank’s licence and delisting the bank.
According to Mr. Amoabeng, the revocation of UT Bank’s licence and the delisting of the bank from the stock exchange amounted to a conduct “without due regard to the rules of administrative justice guaranteed under article 23 of the 1992 Constitution.”
Interestingly, Mr. Amoabeng is on record to have said that high levels of non-performing loans and thievery by some staff collapsed his bank.
Restoration Plea
He and Dr. Duffuor are therefore asking Parliament to direct the restoration of their banking licences and the remedy of the harms done to the shareholders’ property rights in the said banks as a result of the central bank’s action.
They have also sought for Parliament to give any other directives that it may deem appropriate to BoG for its action against them.
Banking licences of Duffuor’s uniBank and Amoabeng’s UT Bank were revoked by the central bank during the financial sector clean up, but uniBank was put into administration by the BoG in 2018 before consolidating it with other defunct banks during the banking crisis.
The central cited weak supervisory standards, breaches, operational weakness and persistent liquidity challenges in its cash reserve requirements as some of the reasons for the takeover, while management of UT Bank was accused of mishandling depositors’ cash by engaging in fictitious and unlawful activities.
Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, had said he wished the petitions were not admitted by the Speaker since “both matters are before the court and they (Dr. Duffuor and Mr. Amoabeng) have been directed to amicably resolve the matter with BoG.”
“I would have wished the Speaker waited for the court to handle the case. It is not as if it is now going to the court, and in any case if we come to such a determination how do we enforce it if the matter is in court,” he argued.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House