Ghana Amalgamated Trust killing indigenous banks – Dr. Atuahene

Banking consultant Dr. Richmond Atuahene has stated that the Ghana Amalgamated Trust (GAT), which was established to support Ghanaian banks, is instead proving to be detrimental to them.

During an appearance on GHOne TV's 'State of Affairs' with Francis Abban, Dr. Atuahene addressed the challenges facing the banking sector.

He revealed that the terms associated with the funds provided by GAT are so onerous that they are effectively crippling the banks.

“In 2019 when the Ghana Amalgamated Trust (GAT) came in everybody thought that they were going to lend money to the banks at a reasonable rate. I think five of them. You will shocked," he said.

“You see the amount of money they gave to them and the cost of that money alone is killing the banks. I am telling you. If you saw Prudential Bank’s balance sheet, you saw the losses they made. If you are giving somebody subordinated capital you are not supposed to put something like a bond rate on it. So whatever the banks are doing they are working for them. So for me, all these things have not helped the economy,” Dr. Atuahene stated.

According to him, the banking sector clean-up exercise embarked upon by this current administration did more harm to the Ghanaian economy.

“I don’t think we got the best out of it, the reason why I am saying this is that we could have re-fenced the bank the bad banks and got people to manage it and turn it around with the same amount of capital. Without necessarily closing it down," he said.

“People lost their jobs, people lost everything, some people are now Uber drivers and what have you. But it doesn’t actually help us,” he added.