Nkonkonsa Celebrity Gossip From Africa
Prince Kofi Amoabeng, the former CEO of the Unique Trust Bank, has argued that it was incorrect for the government to order the Central Bank to dissolve the financial organization in 2017.
He asserts that the Bank of Ghana made a mistake in its decision and points out that the money spent declaring UT Bank and other financial institutions bankrupt could have been used to save the local banks during the clean-up operation.
Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Monday, February 20, 2023, Prince Kofi Amoabeng said, “I still maintain that it was a wrong decision for them to collapse it. I wasn’t even the CEO at the time. Ghana is now going for a bailout, and we couldn’t bail out a successful company, but I am saying it depends on the kind of reports that went to the authorities probably it was mixed with all sorts of negative things which were not true.”
He continued “A bailout was necessary because if a bank owes the government about GH¢800 million and you use GH¢2.2 billion to collapse it then that money could have been given to the bank for it to restructure under your supervision and let them pay over a period of 5 years’.
The founder of UT Bank mentioned how banks that received rescue packages during the 2008 US financial crisis have since serviced their loans and are still strong.
“All the banks in the US that were bailed out in 2008 have all paid up and are now strong again,” he noted.
