President of the Ghana Savings and Loans Association, Kwaku Duah Berchie has suggested one major means by which Savings and Loans institutions in Ghana can be revived after Bank of Ghana’s intended clean-up.
Besides Bank of Ghana’a intended cash injection, Mr Duah Berchie believes that good Corporate Governance will build a more robust and proactive S&Ls sector. He stated that the first thing to look at is corporate governance. “If you have good corporate governance, you will not make certain mistakes, or you will not do certain things that will be detrimental to the customers and their deposits. If you have good corporate governance, you can implement a good loan processing system in which you give out the best of loans, so that when the loans go out they will come back. If you have a good corporate governance system, you will recruit, train and retain good staff so your human capital will also be top notch”.
He further stated that “for me that’s the most crucial, and the Association is working towards it. A few days ago, we went through a Corporate Governance training in collaboration with GIZ from Germany, in which Boards and key management staff of all the Savings and Loans companies registered with the Association, were trained”.
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“The repercussion of the collapse of banks and brouhaha that has hit the financial sector since 2017, has led to a sharp decline of public confidence in the financial sector and eventually triggered panic withdrawals by customers of various financial institution. A sound measure to beat the mess and ensure that right things are done going forward, is to implement good Corporate Governance systems, where rules and regulations are followed”. President of the Ghana Savings and Loans Association stated.
A few days ago, The Bank of Ghana (BoG) requested for financial support from the Ministry of Finance to clean up the microfinance and savings and loans industry, in order to salvage funds of hundreds of thousands of depositors.
About 705,396 depositors of distressed or collapsed microfinance companies and rural and community banks (RCBs) risk losing a total of GH¢740.5 million if their financial resources are not shored up swiftly.
The GH¢740.5 million represents deposits currently locked up in the 272 rural and community banks and microfinance companies which were either in distress or had folded up as of last year.
