According to him, even though the closure was a big blow to him, he was lucky to have his family behind him.
“Very painful experience but I understood it. I have been a governor, I have been a Finance Minister; high profile jobs; you will pay for that, so, I paid heavily for it but because of my family, I was able to handle it,” he explained on Monday’s edition of “The Point of View’ show on Citi TV.
He indicated that, due to the closure, some of his businesses were affected while others are doing well.
Background
The Bank of Ghana consolidated five local banks into what it calls the Consolidated Bank Ghana limited.
The banks were Beige Bank, Construction Bank, Royal Bank, uniBank and Sovereign bank.
According to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, some of the banks obtained their licenses through false means by presenting documents that painted a picture as though they could meet the new capital requirement.
uniBank prior to the merger was put under an administrator, KPMG after the bank was insolvent and faced liquidity challenges.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor together with Prince Kofi Amoabeng petitioned Parliament to investigate the conduct of the central bank and the Ghana Stock Exchange following the revocation of the licences of their respective financial institutions.
Dr. Duffuor, founder of the now-defunct uniBank, and Mr. Amoabeng, former Chief Executive Officer of the collapsed UT bank, had the licenses of their respective financial institutions revoked during the banking sector clean-up which commenced in 2017.
For UT Bank, the apex bank claimed it took the action against the institution because it was insolvent and was unable to recapitalise despite several assurances from the company’s shareholders.
The apex bank also gave similar reasons for the revocation of uniBank’s license, saying the financial institution was significantly undercapitalized.
The Bank of Ghana also claimed that shareholders of uniBank used monies from the bank to acquire estate properties in their own names.
According to the central bank, “uniBank’s shareholders and related parties admitted to acquiring real estate properties in their own names using the funds from the bank under questionable circumstances.”
While uniBank was merged with four other banks to form the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited, the Bank of Ghana gave GCB permission to takeover UT bank.
Dr. Duffuor is currently litigating the collapse of his bank with the hope of getting the court to declare that, merging his bank with others to form the Consolidated Bank is null and void.
