The parliamentary committee tasked to probe the collapse of uniBank and UT Bank has directed the petitioners to submit all documents that back their request for the restoration of their licence.

The nine-member committee gave the directive after their first meeting last week.

Following a petition presented to the House by Prince Kofi Amoabeng and Dr. Kwabena Duffour, the Speaker set up the committee to look into the concerns contained in their request.

Prince Kofi Amoabeng and Dr. Kwabena Duffuor on March 19, 2021, petitioned Parliament to investigate the conduct of the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Stock Exchange following the revocation of the licence of their respective financial institutions – UT Bank and uniBank.

Speaking to Citi News on the fringes of the inauguration of the new Parliamentary Service Board, the Chairman of the bi-partisan Committee, Joe Osei Owusu said the petitioners have one week to make their evidence and documents available to the committee.

He also disclosed that the committee will then also have one week to also study the documents and decide on the way forward.

“The committee met last week and after reading the petition, we decided to call on the petitioners to bring to us all the documents on which they based their petition and request so that the committee will review them and then guide us on the way forward. We have not as yet received them. I think we agreed that we will reconvene in two weeks because we said we are allowing them one week to submit and one week for us to study the documents, and then we start our work.”

Background
The two businessmen, Prince Kofi Amoabeng and Dr. Kwabena Duffuor petitioned Parliament to investigate the conduct of the central bank and the Ghana Stock Exchange following the revocation of the licence of their respective financial institutions.

Dr. Duffuor, founder of the now-defunct uniBank, and Mr. Amoabeng, former Chief Executive Officer of collapsed UT bank, had the licenses of their respective financial institutions revoked during the banking sector clean-up which commenced in 2017.

For UT Bank, the apex bank claimed it took the action against the institution because it was insolvent and was unable to recapitalize despite several assurances from the company’s shareholders.

The apex bank also gave similar reasons for the revocation of uniBank’s license, saying the financial institution was significantly undercapitalized.

The Bank of Ghana also claimed that shareholders of uniBank used monies from the bank to acquire estate properties in their own names.

According to the central bank “uniBank’s shareholders and related parties admitted to acquiring real estate properties in their own names using the funds from the bank under questionable circumstances.”

While uniBank was merged with four other banks to form the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited, the Bank of Ghana gave GCB permission to takeover UT bank.

Dr. Duffuor is currently litigating the collapse of his bank with the hope of getting the court to declare that, merging his bank with others to form the Consolidated bank is null and void.

Mr. Amoabeng, per the petition documents, said his bank’s licence was revoked “without due regard to the rules of Administrative Justice guaranteed under article 23 of the 1992 Constitution.”

He is thus asking Parliament to give a directive for the restoration of the licence.