uniBank takeover apt – Analyst

Emmanuel Akron, a Canada-based Ghanaian Financial & Credit Consultant, has said the Bank of Ghana is justified with its decision to take over the management of uniBank.

According to him, the managers of the bank engaged in poor corporate governance and risk management practices, a situation that created problems for the bank, leading to the action of the central bank.

The central bank in a statement released on Tuesday, 20 March, said uniBank refused to cooperate with the BoG in the performance of its supervisory responsibilities, including deliberately concealing some liabilities from its balance sheet, and failing to submit documents and records for supervisory inspection, hence the takeover.

The bank, among other things, also “failed to comply with a directive of the Bank of Ghana dated 26th October, 2017 under section 105 of Act 930, prohibiting the bank from granting new loans and incurring new capital expenditures. Failed to comply with several other regulatory requirements, including: Lending to a number of borrowers in excess of its regulatory lending limit (single obligor limit) under section 62 of the Banks and SDIs Act, 2016 (Act 930).

Speaking on Ghana Yensom hosted by Chief Jerry Forson on Wednesday, 21 March on Accra100.5FM, Mr Akron said: “The bank engaged in poor corporate governance and risk management practices and that has resulted in this problem. The bank wasn’t growing in the right way; as a bank, you don’t just give out loans to anybody.

“uniBank involved themselves in the Energy bond issues, they also invested in the construction sector, and, so, their moneys locked up there.



“Their risk management and lending practices were poor and that resulted in their short-term borrowing. Could you imagine a bank like uniBank is borrowing from another bank at 25 per cent? Individuals should rather be borrowing at the 25 per cent but unibank borrowed about two billion from other banks at 25 per cent. Now your asset is 5 billion and you go and borrow 2 billion, how much do you have left to manage your business?

Bank of Ghana takes over management of Unibank by GhanaWeb Editorial on Scribd