ASEPA discredits claims made by Deputy Finance Minister over full payment of claims to depositors

The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), has rebutted claims made by the deputy Finance Minister, Charles Adu Boahen that ninety six percent of depositors have been paid in full.

In a statement sighted by Vaultz News and signed by the Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, it intimated that the “claim is NOT only FALSE but extremely capricious”.

“Apart from UT bank and Capital which the BoG asked GCB to take over some selected Assets and Liabilities of these two banks after its vicious collapse, which led to some payments of customers, NOT so much has been done to pay Customers of the Collapsed Financial Institutions apart from Needless Validations, Re-Validations and Counter Validations by the Receiver”.

Deputy Finance Minister disclosed in parliament on Tuesday, July 28, that majority of depositors whose funds were locked up as a result of the collapse of these financial institutions have been paid in full.  

Mr. Boahen posited that 20 percent of the funds were paid via cash, while the remaining 80 percent were issued out as bond payment, iterating government acknowledgment of concerns over unpaid monies.

However, ASEPA lamented over government’s lack of commitment in paying customers, claimed that the number of depositors who have been paid are way fewer than what is being peddled.

“Less than 5% of Customers of Fund Management Companies have actually been paid, for Savings and Loans Companies the estimate is around 3% of customers and the Microfinance is hovering around 6%.

“Government have little commitment to pay Customers, In fact it does NOT even intend to pay them in its second term and that is why a 5year zero coupon bond was issued to customers of the collapsed banks”.

The statement further alleged that even in the case of UT Bank and Capital Bank, government issued a bond of GHC2billion to GCB putting GCB under pressure to dip its hands into its own reserves to pay off some of the customers of the collapsed UT and Capital Bank.

“Commercial banks/Universal banks have the highest number of Customers paid, because of the 50% discounted coupon been redeemed at CBG. Close to 15% have redeemed their 5years Non-tradable Zero Coupon bonds at CBG at a discount of 50%. Which means they had to forfeit half of their locked-up funds”.

“Now it is evidently clear that the deputy Minister of Finance did NOT only lie to Ghanaians, he deceived Parliament too and must be held for contempt of Parliament or be dragged to the privileges committee if he is a Member of the House”.

The Statement also claimed some officials in government have benefitted from the collapse of the banks.