Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of defunct UT Bank, Captain Prince Kofi Amoabeng (Rtd) has debunked the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) propaganda against the Akufo-Addo led government that the banking clean-up exercise a target against some people, with the view to collapsing their businesses.
According to the former UT Bank boss, he does not believe the closure of banks was targeted, adding that he does not like to think negatively of the unfortunate incident that befell his business and other financial entities.
The BoG revoked licenses of UT Bank and Capital Bank and approved a Purchase and Assumption (P&A) transaction with GCB Bank Ltd that transferred all deposits and selected assets of the two banks after they were found to be deeply insolvent.
The Central Bank subsequently revoked the universal banking licenses of five banks including UniBank Ghana Limited, Construction Bank, Sovereign Bank, Royal Bank, and Beige Bank, and issued a license to a newly created bank, Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited – which is wholly owned by the Government of Ghana.
Mr. Amoabeng, reacting to the story on Happy Fm said “I don’t think the closure of banks was targeted. But being the way we are, considering certain things that happened with UT, I don’t want to think about it because I hate negativity.
He explained that “The bank was not the only entity that was closed down. UT has subsidiaries. Soon after the closedown of the bank, the government froze the account of all UT subsidiaries and we didn’t even know where it was coming from. We inquired from the Bank of Ghana and EOCO and they said it was not them”.
He continues that “Finally, we found out that it was the Financial Intelligence Centre. And then they said that they were investigating UT for money laundering. Up till today, the 27 accounts closed are still frozen. So, you will wonder that who will want to kill everything that Kofi Amoabeng has created.
Kofi Amoabeng also noted there is no way he is going to fight the government for this mishap, after admitting that sometimes he is tempted to question who will want to “kill everything that he has created, especially when he considers other incidents that took place after the closing of his bank”.
He concluded that “You cannot fight the government because the government was chosen by the people. That is what it is so let it go and life continues”.
The Bank of Ghana has since also revoked the licenses of 23 insolvent savings and loans and finance house companies.
– BY Daniel Bampoe