The GCB Bank is in the news and worryingly for unenviable reasons.
It hurts to brood over a state financial institution being deliberately mismanaged just so persons with links to the corridor of political power can have access to the monies belonging to customers and by extension to the people of Ghana. That this has happened and is perhaps continuing under such circumstances defies logic more so when the Board Chairman is leading the untoward charge on the bank’s vaults, as it were, recklessly and unpatriotically.
The GCB Bank could have posted a better picture of progress were it spared the hands of politicians through the Board Chairman in the disbursement of unsecured loans: Daniel Owiredu’s chairing of one of the loan approving committees is consistent with the attributes of conflict of interest.
The story of the GCB Bank, as it’s being let out, smacks of an inappropriate connivance of politicians and bizarrely the Chairman of the Board for an untoward financial end.
Such connivance does not inure to the interest of the nation, but individuals who were ironically appointed to keep the goalposts and their godfathers.
With such mismanagement dotting the map of state institutions, it’s not surprising that the economy is on its knees.
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), State Insurance Company Limited (SIC) and the Ghana Coco Board (COCOBOD) all share the attributes of the GCB Bank.
Ceding out such institutions to rogues in the manner we are witnessing, cannot yield dividends we badly need in an ailing country. So doesn’t anybody care about what is happening to want to intervene?
The Ghanaian elite and professional is an amazing character: his readiness to throw the ethics of his profession to the dogs and line his pocket is the bane of our fiscal challenges.
Doling out funds without security cannot be defended under any circumstance and we condemn the act in its entirety.
It is an insult to us as citizens of this country that the Chairman of the Board of the bank would still have the guts to defend the manner in which loans have been managed. His narration is far from the reality and we dare him to lay out the facts in a manner as to enable the ordinary man understand what is happening so they can make their own judgment. Many customers have sought loans who have been denied such facilities, the provision of the necessary securities notwithstanding because those in charge of such approvals find them politically incorrect.
Others, however, have been given loans without security, making us wonder whether there is anybody who cares about the interest of the state and customers of the bank.
We await the action of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) because the situation on our hands is appalling and requires automatic intervention in consonance with the apex bank’s mandate.
In other dispensations, the Chairman should have resigned his appointment.
Bad board members and others whose actions and inactions lead to the financial hemorrhaging of financial institutions must be named and shamed.
We stand up to be counted among those who demand propriety on the part of those entrusted with the management of state institutions such as the GCB Bank and others.
Things cannot continue this way indefinitely.
The board chairman should bow his head in shame for inflicting such harm on the GCB Bank, a disturbing chapter in the financial history of the country.