BoG does not collapse companies, their owners do – Elsie Awadzi

Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Elsie Addo Awadzi, has asked the media to use the right terminologies in their reports on the sector to send the right messages to the public.

Speaking at a media sensitisation workshop organised by the BoG and associations representing Specialised Deposit-taking Institutions (SDIs), the 2nd Deputy BoG Governor said some headlines distort the salient point in an event within the sector.

“It is important that the media leads the public discourse in a dispassionate and expert manner…We have heard too often, headlines such as ‘Bank of Ghana has collapsed companies’. Bank of Ghana never collapses anything. No. We licence, we supervise and then when an institution has failed, we take it out of the system in a manner that does not affect the system.

“So do not say ‘Bank of Ghana has collapsed anything’. Bank of Ghana does not collapse anything. These institutions are run and governed by their shareholders, who put their Board of Directors and a team of management. So, they collapsed the companies. We don’t collapse the companies. It is important for the media to understand that,” she stressed.

The media sensitisation event brought together key players in the sector and presented a rare opportunity for the SDI associations to better explain their operations to the media.

It also enabled the media to ask appropriate questions of the key players in the sector and provide feedback to SDIs as to what the public thinks of their service.

Elsie Addo Awadzi said it is important that the media grows to become a key partner that understands the financial sector and the regulatory framework within which the financial sector operates.

“[The financial sector] is very different from other types of businesses and it is important that the media, when they engage in discussions related to the financial sector, they do so with an understanding of regulatory environment as well as the policy environment within which the financial sector operates,” she admonished.