Frank Annoh-Dompreh
The Majority in Parliament has denied assertions by the Minority counterpart that the government intends to liquidate the National Investment Bank (NIB) owing to insolvency and poor corporate governance.
Deputy Ranking Member on the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, who made the allegations, said the government was colluding with the Bank of Ghana to merge the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and the NIB, which he claimed could lead to about 800 job losses.
In response to the allegations, the Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, said the claims by the Minority were baseless and that the government had made no decision in that regard.
Addressing the media in Parliament yesterday, Mr. Annoh-Dompreh also dismissed claims that the challenges of NIB was as a result of poor corporate governance which has led to bad practice of the bank’s treasury management.
“It is never true that the treasury of the National Investment Bank (NIB) is not functioning,” he stated, and added that the current management had adhered to best practices in corporate treasury management.
The Majority Chief Whip said the current liquidity challenges at the bank were as a result of some GH¢500 million that was given to non-banking institutions during the era of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, which money remained unrecovered.
“Some GH¢500 million, under the reign of NDC, was given to non-financial institutions and as we speak, a lot of the money has not been recovered,” he stressed.
Mr. Annoh-Dompreh, who is also the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, said, “The least our colleagues can do is to be careful when commenting about a bank that is mandated by law to help solve and develop our industry.”
“All of us can appreciate that we are gradually gravitating towards an election year and so people are tempted to come and make all manner of allegations.
“I am challenging the Minority that if they have a better proof in terms of the management of NIB and what the board has done wrongly, they should come up and put it across,” he asserted.
“They should stop making sweeping allegations which don’t end up helping anybody,” Mr. Annoh-Dompreh said.
He admitted that the bank needed recapitalisation, but he was quick to add that “it is not everything that we have to play politics with.”
“Our colleagues in the Minority should stop this politicisation of all matters, especially those related to the financial sector. If they don’t have the facts they should just be patient, investigate and get it,” he submitted.
He noted that the current management of NIB, upon assumption of office, had revitalised the bank with various policies and programmes.
“Between 2017 and 2018, the bank never had audited financial statements. The same NIB had had a high concentration of loans in the area of the construction sector.
“There were losses from mismatches in the foreign exchange balance sheet resulting in a huge daily revaluation loss. There was a weak IT infrastructure and high cost of service contract.
“They also experienced an astronomical ratio of staffing. They had 18 staff per branch against the industry norm of 10 staff per branch,” he noted.
He pointed out that the story is different today due to adoption of good corporate governance by the board and management of NIB.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House