Only about four per cent of depositors’ locked-up funds following the banking sector clean-up exercise have not been paid, a Deputy Finance Minister, Mr Charles Adu Boahen, has said.

According to him, some 96% of customers of the nine affected banks have had their deposits fully paid to them.

He said 20% of the funds was paid in cash while 80% was through issued bonds.

“The bonds were structured to pay out over four years,” Mr Adu Boahen told Parliament on Tuesday, July 28, 2020.

Apart from the nine affected local banks, the central bank also revoked the licences of 347 Microfinance Companies and 23 Savings and Loans and Finance House Companies citing insolvency, mismanagement and fraud in some cases.

The deputy minister’s claim follows a promise by former President John Mahama that his next government, should he win the 7 December 2020 polls, will pay all locked-up funds to the affected customers of all financial institutions within a year.

Speaking at an event in Accra to outdoor Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as his running mate, the flag bearer of the NDC said: “My heart goes out to the many who have been affected by this Government’s unjustifiable collapse of Ghanaian-owned financial institutions”. 

“It is heart-wrenching to hear government officials justify the huge amounts it is spending to manage the impact of the collapse, now put at 21 billion Ghana cedis”, he bemoaned.

The former President said: “I weep for the many who have lost their jobs, the many who have lost their businesses, the many who have lost their livelihood among others”. 

He pledged “on behalf of the NDC that we shall pay within one year all who have funds locked up with the collapsed financial institutions. Within one year. I promise!”

“We shall not put up any long-term payment plans that will further worsen the living conditions of the victims.

“As has been introduced in other economies, the next NDC Administration will establish a Financial Services Authority that will be responsible for ensuring that consumer financial markets work for consumers, providers and the economy as a whole.” 

“The Authority will oversee all financial products and services that are offered to consumers, and will effectively and efficiently prevent and stop the challenges that have confronted customers of Menzgold, DKM among others. 

“We will restore Ghanaian indigenous investment in the banking and financial sector through a tiered banking structure in order to restore viable credit sources for Ghanaian SMEs. We will make amends for those whose businesses were collapsed due to political victimisation”, the former President said.

Also, Mr Mahama said: “We will send all contractors with valid contracts who have been sitting at home for 4 years without being paid for legitimate work done for government back to site”.

“We will make immediate arrangements to pay them their hard-earned monies deliberately withheld by the Nana Addo administration due to politics”.