Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has blamed the recent banking sector crisis that led to the collapse of some seven indigenous banks to clueless and inexperienced board members who were appointed to run the banks.
According to him, the Bank of Ghana must also share in the blame for supervising the constitution of such inept and incompetent boards.
‘’We are in this country Bank of Ghana, the law says if someone who wants to establish a bank, you have to be interested in the background of the people they are employing to manage the bank, their educational qualification and experience among others, those that are supposed to be members of the board and all that. Did the bank of Ghana do all that? Because some of the banks if you look at those that were sitting on the boards, even me who is sitting here when it comes to knowledge of economic s, may be I am far better than them’’ he told Kwame Sefa Kayi on Accra based Peace Fm and monitored by BestNewsGH.com.
The peeved Kwesi Pratt continued ‘’ It has reached a stage where you can establish a bank and make your wife a member of the board whether she is educated or not, whether she has any knowledge in banking or not, you pick your child and if you have a girlfriend then you add her too. Is this how to manage an important sector like banking? These are governance issues’’ he argued.
According to Mr. Pratt, the bank of Ghana has the responsibility to scrutinise and vet people who have been appointed Managing Directors or Chief Executive Officers of the banks, taking into account the number of years they have been in the industry and the amount of experience they have accumulated.
It is his considered opinion that the bank of Ghana reneged on its responsibility of performing due diligence on the crop of Managing Directors under whose watch the banks collapsed.
‘’Because you have connections, you establish a bank and you just go to the village and bring your nephew or niece and make him Managing Director, these are issues that we need to address. Major governance issues, how are decisions taken by the board, which rules do they follow and so on. Alabraka’’ he added.
Source: BestNewsGH.com
