The Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, says it is practically impossible for future governments to restore the licences of banks collapsed a few years ago.
His comment comes on the back of a promise by former President John Dramani Mahama to restore the banking licenses that he said were unjustly cancelled by the Akufo-Addo’s government if elected in the 2024 general elections.
The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) further pledged to ensure that experienced people who lost their jobs in the wake of the clean-up in the banking sector will get their jobs back.
“We will restore indigenous investment and the banking and investment sector. We will create a tiered banking system that will serve the various segments of the market. We will give an opportunity for experienced banking hands who were laid off to secure their careers once more and move away from the menial jobs that they were forced into. As far as practicable, the banking licenses that were unjustly cancelled by this government will be restored,” Mr. Mahama said.
He made this promise during his acceptance speech following his victory at the NDC’s primaries held last week.
But contributing to a discussion on the Big Issue on Citi TV/Citi FM, Mr. Joe Jackson was sceptical about the promise.
“It’s really going to be a difficult thing to do because of the entanglement and so much time has passed. Assuming that Mr. Mahama wins the 2024 general elections, he will assume office in 2025, which will be close to 7 years since the clean-up in the banking sector”.
“It becomes very difficult to understand how you are going to restore all these licenses. When you restore their licenses, does it mean that they will come back and re-capitalise? Set up another institution to get their clients back? The practicality is not that simple, restoring licenses is a very complicated issue. Were the banks unjustifiably taken? And how practical is it? It’s going to be difficult, challenging and not practicable,” the Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance underscored.
He urged the government to put in place measures for Ghanaians to own the banking sector.
“Unfortunately, the fallout from the financial sector clean-up meant that the concentration of our financial sector in foreign hands is now higher than desirable. Some policies should be put in place to give Ghanaians the opportunity to take charge of the financial sector,” he opined.
