The Member of Parliament for Nsawan Adoagyiri and Majority Chief Whip, Hon Frank Annor Dompreh, has rubbished allegations by the Minority in Parliament that, there are sinister moves by the Government to sell off the National Investment Bank (ADB) to the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB).

The Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Hon. Isaac Adongo, alleged at a press conference a few weeks ago that the Government through the Finance Minister is clandestinely working to collapse the bank in order to merge it with the Agricultural Development Bank and later sell it off to cronies in the private sector to the detriment of the taxpayer.
The Ranking Member on Finance said the move to have ADB Bank takeover NIB smacks of a conflict of interest since the Bank of Ghana (BoG) is said to own a majority stake in ADB.

Addressing a press conference in Parliament on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, the Majority Chief Whip, speaking on behalf of the Majority Group, refuted all the allegations and challenged the Minority to come forth with any proof to substantiate their allegations.

He urged them to be thorough with their investigations and not mislead the public on such sensitive issues they put out in the public and advised them to stop politicizing banking and financial matters which could have some consequences on the entire economy of the nation.

“I will challenge the Minority that if they have any proof in terms of the management of the bank and what the board has done; if they have done anything wrong, they should come out and put it across. They should stop making these sweeping arguments, these sweeping allegations which do not end up helping anybody,” he observed.

He took on the Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Isaac Adongo, for spewing a lot of inaccuracies concerning this issue.

“I think what the Minority should do is that, the Financial sector has its own viability, and as such if you are making commentaries about a bank you need to be careful and you need to get your facts right. Our colleague the Minority Ranking Member got it all wrong. It is not true that the treasury of the NIB Bank is not functioning.”

He explained that the Government and the Finance Minister have made some good effort in trying to revitalize the bank and therefore any allegations of clandestine moves cannot be true and that because of the challenges in the Financial sector, the bank is still demanding some recapitalization to be able to work and remain more relevant.

He said, apart from the Sovereign Guarantee being given to Ghana Amalgamated Trust (GAT) to raise the needed finances for the bank, “the current finance Minister led the effort to raise an amount of GHC 800 million which was given to NIB. Then again, they added an additional GHC 57 million, making GHC 857 million which was pushed into the bank’s activities and operations to shore up its profits and activities.”

The Minority Chief Whip also refuted allegations about the bank being run from Canada by the Managing Director who was issuing instructions from his base in absentia and also complained about the bank going into the renting of an ultra-modern building which comes as an extra cost to a bank in distress.

He said his checks revealed that these allegations made by the Minority Group in Parliament about the Management of the NIB bank are not true.

Source: Clement Akoloh//parliamentnews360.com