Deputy Attorney General Alfred Tuah Yeboah has threatened to take legal action against anyone involved in any banking sector breaches.
He made this known in an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on Thursday, October 12, 2023.
His warning comes after founder of defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien was sentenced to 15 years in prison by an Accra High Court.
Mr Essien was convicted of stealing over GH¢90m of Bank of Ghana’s liquidity support to the now-defunct financial institution.
According to the Deputy Attorney General, presently, some cases are being prosecuted in court and are at the advanced stage therefore would want to focus on those for now.
Therefore “those whose case we have not taken to court should not be thinking that we have forgotten about them. No! It is a process. All the others including savings and loans and micro finances, we will get all of them.”
“We are ready and willing to take on all those who were part of the scheme to have depositors’ funds lost,” he said.
“All those who took part or who were owners of savings and loans and micro finances who know that because of their actions and inactions, the state has to cough up money to pay their depositors, we will be coming after all of them,” he added.
In August 2017, the Bank of Ghana started what it said was a cleanup exercise in its bid to rebuild trust in the banking sector.
Spending over GH¢20 billion, the Central Bank’s action was to resolve insolvent financial institutions whose continued existence posed risks to the interest of depositors.
The government claimed that the action was a contributory factor to the high level of national debt.
From mid-2017 to January 2020, the banking sector cleanup was overseen by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
The number of banks was reduced from 34 to 23 as a result of the cleanup, and the licenses of 347 microfinance institutions, 15 savings and loans, and 8 finance houses were revoked.
The state-owned GCB was permitted to absorb certain commercial banks, while others were combined to form the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
