Joe Jackson, the Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance, believes that future governments will find it challenging to reinstate the licences of banks that failed a few years ago.
His remarks follow former President John Dramani Mahama’s promise to restore banking licences that he claimed were unfairly cancelled by the Akufo-Addo administration if re-elected in the 2024 general elections.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate also promised to rehire experienced workers who were laid off as a result of the banking sector clean-up.
“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.
This commitment was made during his acceptance speech following his victory in the NDC primaries last week.
Mr Joe Jackson, however, was doubtful of the pledge during a Big Issue discussion on Citi TV/Citi FM.
“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 asked the government to put measures in place to allow 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.
