Bank Of Ghana Has No Power To Say It Won’t Restore Licenses Of The Banks

Dean of Business School for the University of Cape Coast, Professor John Gatsi has argued that the Bank of Ghana (BOG) has no power to refuse to restore the licenses of the banks it has unduly revoked.

The former president and flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama has made a promise to restore the licenses of the banks that collapsed due to ‘proven political’ reasons.

However, some political opponents have described the promise given by the former president as a mere political talk which is not within his remit. The sceptics also ask the question of what if the Bank of Ghana refuses to reinstate them.

In his response Professor Gatsi answered, “The Bank of Ghana need not to agree; I don’t know what the Bank of Ghana is going to agree about. It is an administrative decision and not a judicial decision. Administrative decisions are always reviewed by either a commission or through the court. The Bank of Ghana does not have the power to say I will not agree”.

He explained that during the coup d’etat era a lot of people were treated unfairly so during the national reconciliation exercise, some Ghanaians came out to vent their experiences and those that the commission found to have had their rights violated, the state apologized to them and compensated them.

“Some had their properties returned to them, so if we find a mass scale exercise that endangered people’s investment, it is only proper we create a platform for these people to vent their experiences of how the processes were done, how the bank of Ghana didn’t listen to their proposal and how people were charged with criminal offences for their licenses to be revoked” Gatsi asserted.

He maintained, the point remains that BOG has hurt people and if it is found that indeed the due process was not adhered to and they have been treated unfairly, there should not be any problem for BOG to apologize and restore their revoked license.

According to the dean, there is nothing too costly to restore the right that was endangered and people’s investments that were destroyed hence cost must not be a hindrance.

“We need to allow people to vent their experiences and out of that we will know whether some people were fairly treated or not, then actions could be taken” Prof Gatsi concluded.

A renowned economist Kwame Pianim has said that if it is proven that some of the banks that went under during the recapitalization exercise collapsed due to political reasons then the licenses of those banks should be restored.