GH¢1.7 billion recovered from banking sector clean-up exercise - BoG Governor

• Out of the GH¢25 billion targeted, only GH¢1.7 billion has been retrieved

• This was made known by the Bank of Ghana Governor, Dr Ernest Addison

• He said recovering only 7 percent of the monies is not encouraging

Bank of Ghana Governor, Dr Ernest Addison, has disclosed that only GH¢1.7 billion has been recovered from the banking sector clean-up exercise the government undertook four years ago.

He noted that the central bank is looking forward to receiving a total of GH¢25 billion from the defunct banks and Savings and Loans.

Speaking at the 100th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference held in Accra on Monday, May 31, 2021, the BoG governor attributed their failure to recoup the targeted monies from the collapsed banks due to the hesitant attitude of the courts.

Answering a question on how much has been retrieved from the banking clean-up exercise, Dr Addison said, "GH¢1.7 billion so far recovered but we are looking at total assets of GH¢25 billion. Just 7% of the work has been done and it is not encouraging."

"Part of this problem again is what is going on in our courts. Things are not moving as quickly as one would have expected,” he stated.

The banking sector clean-up exercise was undertaken in August 2017. This led to the collapse of seven indigenous banks.

According to BoG, the exercise was to restore confidence in the banking and specialized deposit-taking sectors.

The levels of capital held by some savings and loans companies and finance house companies were in violation of the minimum regulatory capital required by Act 930.

Given the risks that these institutions continue to pose to the entire financial system and the need to protect the interest of depositors, the Bank of Ghana sanitized the sector embarked on the exercise in accordance with Sections 123 to 137 of Act 930.