Apex Bank staff accuse Board

Staff of ARB Apex Bank have accused the board of directors of supervising the mismanagement of the affairs of the bank.

Apart from board’s alleged approval of Ghc5,500,000 for the purchase of luxurious accommodation apartment for the Managing Director (MD), among other things, all the board members allegedly received phone tablets.

The phone tablets were reportedly not procured through the appropriate process.

Sources close to the bank told BUSINESS GUIDE that “these were procured from South Africa.”

Each board member is alleged to have received a bonus of about GH¢11,000 at a time when the Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) are in distress while the board chairman is purported to have been sponsored by ARB Apex Bank to Dubai for a training programme.

BUSINESS GUIDE has also gathered that DANIDA is seeking the repayment of about Ghc400,000, which is the estimated interest on the rural wholesale fund kept at Apex Bank which has been allowed to lose its value.

In the case of the GVIVE platform for the bank, which was procured at an exorbitant price, there are reports that MTN offered to support the facility at approximately half price. Again, the cost of internet bandwidth currently being used by the bank was said to have been inflated.

The size is three times what is truly required.

Opaque forex trading activities that led to the exit of the former MD is ongoing at the bank.

A concerned insider has written to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to deal with it.

Workers of ARB Apex Bank, it would be recalled, demanded between 15 and 22 percent pay increment recently, citing the severe economic conditions for their demand.

But it appears their grievances were addressed after they gave a seven-day ultimatum to lay down their tools.