The newly-created Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG) will be closing down 98 of its 191 inherited branches and keeping 93, Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr Mark Asibey-Yeboah, has said.
Briefing the media after Day 2 of the committee’s in-camera hearing at which it met with CBG officials, Dr. Asibey-Yeboah said although the management of CBG is certain of which branches it will close down, the number of jobs to be lost are yet to be determined.
“We asked the question about the number of jobs they will cut, and they said they are still in the process of rationalising the platform they want to use, and that will determine where they will go. What we had from them was the number of branches they will close down.
“As of now, they have 191, and they have come to the determination that they will keep 93, but beyond that, we do not have the number of jobs that will be lost”, he said.
The government of Ghana, since August 2017, has rescued seven struggling local banks with GHS8billion of taxpayers’ money.
They include UT Bank, Capital Bank, uniBank, Sovereign Bank, The Royal Bank, The Beige Bank and The Construction Bank.
The first two went under in August 2017.
The other five went bust two weeks shy of a year after the first two failed.
UT Bank and Capital Bank were taken over by GCB Bank while the last five were put together by the Bank of Ghana to form the all-new CBG.
It is estimated that about 1,700 staff of CBG will be retrenched.