Association of S&Ls welcomes Akufo-Addo’s GHS5bn payment promise

The Association of Savings and Loans Companies has welcomed President Nana Akufo-Addo’s promise that GHS5 billion will be released on Monday, 24 February 2020, to settle depositors whose funds have been locked-up following the cleanup exercise of the financial sector by the Bank of Ghana.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, on Thursday, 20 February 2020 announced that the money would be released by the government to settle all depositors of the defunct microfinance and savings & loans companies.

This will increase the cost of servicing locked-up funds to GHS 18 billion.

Speaking to Class Business, the Executive Secretary of the Association of Savings and Loans Companies, Twenebuah Kodua, said: “If, of course, GHS5 billion is released to the public, and, of course, the customers receive this GHS5 billion, it will help them to continue to do their business; it will help them resolve the other issue. There are a number of them who we are sure that they don’t actually want to utilise their monies and we want to encourage them [that] when they receive their monies, ‘Come and bank with us’ because we are far better today than yesterday”.

“It will also improve the liquidity position in the system, it will help people who are not paying their loans to also pay their loans, it will help people who are not saving to also save somewhere. We believe that the release of these funds is going to oil the whole system again to improve productivity.”

Mr Twenebuah Kodua added: “What we are interested in, is the fact that anybody who has gone through the validation, receives his/her money. As to the quantum and all that, we can’t verify, we can’t confirm or disprove; we are happy that some monies have been made available.”

The affected customers of microfinance and savings and loans companies are believed to be about 3.3 millions.

Presently, there are 25 savings and loans companies in operations.