Flashback: Banking is not that tough; it’s just common sense – Otabil

It seems the woes of Founder of International Central Gospel Church Pastor Mensa Otabil may not be going away anytime soon as a video from his past has come back to ‘haunt’ him. While speaking to a section of his congregants, Mr. Otabil revealed that he had been appointed a board chairman of a bank (which we now know is Capital Bank) although he had no background and training in the field.

He was however optimistic that he will be able to sail through successfully since understanding the banking sector was quite a no brainer once the person could ‘add up the numbers, subtract, be detailed and be logical.

“I didn’t have banking training but I’m a chairman of a bank and I was intimidated the first time, I said wow, what am I going to do I’m just going to make a mess of myself… money is so easy to understand, just find out where it’s coming from and where it’s going; track it.” He stated.

…It’s just commonsense. You look at facts, you query the facts, demand answers from the facts and you get the answers. It’s not that hard, and I was horrible and still horrible at Mathematics. But I realise in finance you don’t need serious mathematics, just addition, subtraction, income, cost, expenditure, and net.

…it’s that tough really. Many times we allow things to intimidate us. You look at the financial statement… it doesn’t mean much, it’s addition and subtraction; that’s all follow the numbers, the numbers tell their own story, he concluded.

The highly revered preacher and teacher has come under public scrutiny following his alleged involvement in one of the recently collapsed banks (Capital Bank) by the Bank of Ghana.

Mr. Mensah Otabil was the board chairman of the collapsed Capital Bank. According to a statement issued by the chancellor of Central University, he played a non-executive role in the management of the bank and therefore not informed in the day to day management of the collapsed bank.

He went on to state that he accepted to be the board chairman of the said bank only so they can work towards helping the ordinary Ghanaian and to improve the prospect business sector of the country.



He however stated that some mandated state institutions have been involved in investigating him and other executives of the bank and since he is a believer in the rule of law, he will always make himself available to these state institutions when called upon.

Speaking openly for the first time after weeks of the brouhaha, Pastor told members of his church, that, “God is good.”



Even though he did not go into the details of the controversy and his role in the collapse of the Bank, the founder of the ICGC told his members he owed them an explanation but that can best be summed up in the goodness of God.