uniBank collapse: I won’t honour your invitation – Duffuor to SIT

Former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor has said he will not honour the invitation of the Special Investigative Team (SIT) which is probing the collapse of uniBank – which he founded.

The former Governor of the Bank of Ghana has also asked the head of the SIT, COP Edward Tabriri, to stop threatening to cause his arrest, detention and hurried arraignment on non-existent and frivolous charges and rather urged him to follow due process so they can slug it out in court.

Dr Duffuor’s injunction application filed at the High Court, according to The Heritage newspaper, indicates that the uniBank founder, having initiated a suit against the Bank of Ghana in August 2018 over the revocation of the bank’s licence, declined the invitation of the SIT and instead caused his lawyer to write to the team seeking clarification and further detail regarding the said invitation primarily because, as of the time of the revocation of the bank’s licence, Dr Duffuor was neither involved in the management of the bank nor was he a Board member since 2009 and, thus, fails to see how he could be of valuable assistance to the SIT’s probe of the 2018 collapse of the bank.

After having initiated a suit against the central bank for this very same reason, Dr Duffuor’s lawyer, Mr Simon Animley, said he believes that the proper approach would be to wait until the final determination of the said suit, which is pending in court, and not try to circumvent the law by inviting him over in a bid to embarrass and humiliate him.

On 1 August 2018, the Bank of Ghana, revoked the licence of the biggest indigenous bank in the country.

Two days later, the shareholders of uniBank wrote to the Bank of Ghana, requesting a copy of the KPMG report upon which the decision was taken.

The Bank of Ghana, in a letter dated 13 August 2018, declined the request for the release of the report to the shareholders, which led to the shareholders heading to court to seek redress against the Bank of Ghana for what they perceive to be the wrongful revocation of the licence of their bank.

Since that suit was initiated, there has been no direct communication among the parties, except representations in court.