Ghanaians should be fuming about the suggestions that the Parliamentary hearing to probe the banking crisis will be behind closed doors, legal practitioner and OccupyGhana member, Ace Ankomah has said.
“…we should very angry about this,” he said at the Citi Business Forum themed “Behind the corporate curtain: The hidden face of corporate governance”.
Given the stakes of the matter in which seven local banks collapsed, hundreds of jobs have been lost and billions of cedis in taxpayer’s money disbursed in varying forms of support, Mr. Ankomah said the public needed to be involved.
“They have misused depositors’ funds and they have taken your tax money and misused it… everything should be in public. We don’t want any part [of the probe] in-camera.”
“As for that in-camera thing, can Ghanaians tell Parliament that forget it. If you are going to sit, we want live TV coverage. Bring them and let them come and answer. In any case, what are you trying to hide? This is Ghana. Now nothing hides.”
He also noted the potential for partisan considerations in the probe.
“We should see the people eyeball to eyeball and let’s see which MPs will go and sit there and turn themselves into defense counsel. We have to see it; everything in this country is politically biased.”
The Finance Committee of Parliament will hold hearings from September 5 to September 7.
Representatives from the Bank of Ghana, Consolidated Bank, KPMG, PwC and the Ministry of Finance are expected to appear before the hearing.
But owners and directors of the seven banks that have collapsed, some under controversial circumstances, will not be invited, according to the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah.
A Ranking Member of the Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, explained that the hearings will not be public because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that considering what we call the sensitivity of the matter, Parliament’s committee of Finance will meet in-camera to look at this matter.”
–
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citinewsroom.com/Ghana