Ace Ankomah
A private legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah, has stated that the required legal backing for the recovery of depositors’ funds from the officials of the recently collapsed banks exists.
He said the state has the authority to seize assets of persons whose actions led to the collapse of the banks and it must pursue them.
Speaking at Citi Business Forum themed, “Behind the corporate curtain; the hidden face of corporate governance,” Ace Ankomah said the laws of the country make room for a procedure to be kick-started for the seizure of the assets of such persons.
He indicated that such persons could be charged with stealing, corruption, fraudulent breach of trust, among others, in a bid to seize their assets and recover depositors’ funds they mismanaged.
“The monies that have been lost to the state should be recovered from their assets. I hope that by now their buildings, monies, shares in companies have been seized. If it’s the law, we have it; defrauding by false pretenses, stealing, corruption, fraudulent breach of trust, the laws exist,” he said.
Ghana’s banking sector is currently in crisis over the collapse of seven local banks within 12 months.
Two of the banks, UT and Capital Bank, have been taken over by the state’s bank GCB.
The five others, Beige Bank, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, uniBank and Royal Bank, have all been consolidated into the Consolidated Bank of Ghana.
The decision to collapse all the banks was taken primarily because they had all become highly insolvent as a result of various reasons, including poor corporate governance.
Although the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has assured the public that depositors’ funds are safe, many have called for the prosecution of persons whose actions led to the collapse of the banks, which is reported to have cost the country more than GH¢4 billion.