Business News of Tuesday, 16 August 2022
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2022-08-16BoG, EOCO join forces to strengthen Ghana's banking sector reforms
BoG Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison and EOCO boss, (CoP) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah
The Bank of Ghana and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) have signed an agreement aimed at building a robust banking and financial sector.
The agreement also seeks to strengthen the investigative operations of EOCO to improve the country's banking and financial industry.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Accra, Governor of the BoG,
Read full articleDr. Ernest Addison, said the Bank’s Board has approved the disbursement of GH¢10 million to strengthen EOCO’s operations.
Dr Addison said the funds will come in two tranches with the first sum of GH¢5 million disbursed immediately to augment EOCO's operations, concerning investigations into the financial clean-up reforms.
The BoG Governor further indicated that a chunk of the money would also be used to investigate cases related to the financial sector clean-up exercise undertaken in 2017 and ended in 2022.
The clean-up saw the revocation of operating licenses of some eight banks, 23 savings and loans companies and more than 400 specialised deposit-taking institutions (SDIs).
Dr Addison explained that the reforms however brought to the fore the critical role of EOCO in uncovering financial crimes and ensuring that perpetrators were brought to book.
“As part of the reforms, the central bank appointed receivers for the failed institutions and tasked them to secure the assets of the collapsed companies, liquidate same to defray debts and identify issues of malpractice that required extra investigations for prosecution and other accountability processes,” Dr. Addison said.
The Governor said among other things, that the receivership process found that most directors of collapsed financial institutions failed in their fiduciary responsibilities to customers and other stakeholders.
He added that while some of the directors could not account for the activities in their institutions, others were unable to account for depositors’ funds.
According to him, the complex nature of the malpractice required that an expert body of investigators be brought in to unravel the matter through further investigations and deal with it.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of EOCO, Commissioner of Police (CoP) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah commended the central bank for the gesture and pledged to ensure that the money was prudently utilised.
The agreement was signed by the BoG Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison on behalf of the Bank, while the Executive Director of EOCO, Commissioner of Police (CoP) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, signed on behalf of EOCO.
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