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Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Mr Yofi Grant, has described as “laughable” comments by Bolgatanga Central MP, Isaac Adongo, that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is working together with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Security and Exchange Commission, to collapse banks that are competing with Databank in the financial sector.

“It is important to realise that a casual look at the banks I have specifically mentioned in the list of collapsed banks belong to a group structure similar to Databank and Enterprise group. UT Bank, Beige Bank and Unibank all are also part of groups of companies. Each of these groups they belong run the same lines of Business as Ken Ofori-Atta’s Databank and Enterprise group. They all have Insurance, Pensions, Investment Banks, and Trusteeship etc.

“In any group structure with a Universal Banking subsidiary, the Bank becomes the heart, father figure and strategic anchor of the group. If you collapse the bank in the group, the rest of the companies and strategic business units become vulnerable. By collapsing UT Bank, Unibank and Beige Bank, Ken Ofori- Atta has succeeded in eliminating the strategic anchor in this group of companies. The remaining businesses don’t have a ‘father’ figure and strategic anchor anymore and cannot therefore compete against Ken Ofori Atta’s Databank and Enterprise Group,” Mr Adongo said in a statement he issued after the collapse of some five local banks.

On Wednesday, 1 August 2018, the BoG announced the formation of Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited by fusing together the struggling banks – uniBank, Sovereign Bank, Construction Bank, The Royal Bank and Beige Bank.

Mr Grant, who was a guest on Class 91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Tuesday, 7 August 2018, said the comments by the MP “is laughable and you can only take it with a pinch of humour”.

Mr Grant explained that he is not sure if the MP said that based on any empirical evidence, adding: “In any case, Ofori-Atta is no more part of Databank, he does not operate Databank and not on the Board [of Databank] anymore”.

He emphasised that: “Databank is not a commercial bank but an investment banking services firm and Databank has been around for 25 years plus”.

For him, Databank is independent and has thrived under different governments and has “no intervention related to policies to say, ‘Let’s go there and collapse the bank’”.

“When you collapse the bank does it mean you own it? So that is what I don’t understand. Databank wants to collapse those banks and then what? Have a small banking sector? When you submit that whole statement to further analysis, you will realise that it is founded on very weak or nonexistent premise,” he noted.