By Dr. Theophilus Acheampong, Independent Economic Consultant; Senior Fellow, IMANI Africa
This petition has also been published in today’s edition of the Business & Financial (B&FT) newspaper in Ghana
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On 19 August 2019, the Bank of Ghana announced the completion of the two-year clean-up of specialised deposit-taking (SDIs) and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs). The outcome of this exercise has been the revocation of the licenses of various SDIs and NBFIs and consolidation of the sector. The expectation is that the recently enacted reform will lead to improving asset quality and a “resilient, inclusive, and supportive of Ghana’s economic growth trajectory”. While the public has been assured that the cleanup of the SDIs is over, the insurance and fund management industries have yet to experience any substantive interventions from their regulators and the Ministry of Finance, their sector ministry.
In this paper, I am proposing an alternative course of action in the fund management and insurance sectors to ensure that depositor, investor, and policyholder funds are protected without incurring excessive direct and indirect costs to taxpayers, business owners, and those whose livelihoods depend on wages and salaries earned by employees of distressed financial institutions. Instead of using public funds to pay customers and then suing former shareholders for reimbursement, I propose that the government should help facilitate the efforts of current shareholders to raise external funds to solve their companies’ problems.
Download full petition: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjyi7g0qtwxiu0t/Petition%20to%20the%20Economic%20Management%20Team_FINAL.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2u1Gt2QjTThNUseDYZliOFJi-5T8aXXI3GHpXCtyH15h-BwqFwMyvUh90