Official Receiver and Liquidator of the collapsed nonbank financial institutions, Eric Nana Nipah indicated that investigations revealed owners of some of the Collapsed financial institutions used monies deposited in their firms to purchase homes in foreign countries.
This makes a good case for prosecution of some of the owners of the collapsed financial institutions since they wanted to profit illegally from depositors’ funds. It is unconscionable to perceive that the owners fraudulently used depositors’ monies to purchase homes in foreign countries.
The Receiver indicated that his outfit has been working with the Economic and Organized Crime Office, EOCO, on potential recoveries and prosecutions for close to a year now. Nipa made the point that prosecutions will also commence next month (August), since the government is not only interested in recovering assets and paying depositors.
Our opinion is that if such properties can be identified, then EOCO should move in to acquire those properties, auction them and use the money to defray the cost to depositors who are persistently inquiring about their locked-up monies.
Investigations also proved that instead of investing the monies given to them, they diverted it into their personal accounts. Nipa is confident that they have clear and solid evidence to begin prosecutions and that will do well to complete the financial sector clean-up.
The clean-up had the dual aim of protecting depositors’ funds and instilling confidence in the Ghanaian banking sector. While insisting on the prosecution of some of the owners for their indiscretion, we also hope that lessons have been learnt from the whole episode, particularly from the perspective of the supervising entity-the central bank.
Many are of the view that they slept on the job while all these occurrences were happening right before their very eyes. Some of the officers at post cannot escape blame since the presided over the rot that was unearthed during the cleanup.
The sad aspect is that many innocent workers of these financial institutions had to lose their jobs with the revocation of their licenses. Justice has to be served.
