Prosecute managers of collapsed banks – Emile Short

The former Commissioner for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Emile Short has called for the prosecution of the managers and board members whose actions led to the collapsed of five indigenous banks.

According to him, they should be found guilty of contributing to the collapsed of the banks.

The Bank of Ghana on Wednesday announced the consolidation of five banks into a new entity called the Consolidated Bank Ghana limited, which is 100 per cent state-owned since they cannot meet the minimum capital requirement of 400 million Ghana cedis.

They are Beige Bank, the Construction Bank, the Royal Bank, UniBank and Sovereign Bank.

The affected local banks are said to have run into liquidity challenges and have been forced to come under a new merger to be managed by the state.

But Mr. Short believes that persons who contributed to the collapse must be liable for prosecution so as to retrieve monies lost.

“…there have been various violation of the banking law as well as other legal provisions and some of them I believe bother on criminality. And people want to see whether there will be criminal prosecution to avoid this kind of reckless behaviour. I want to see prosecution across the board, you know not selective prosecution, no because that will be unfair” he said.

Meanwhile, Sovereign Bank, according to BoG obtained their license under false pretence, and likely to be slapped with criminal charges.

The BoG Governor also indicated Beige and Construction Bank used fictitious and non-existent capital to obtain licenses. The banks, therefore, obtained licenses under false pretences.