The Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) announcement that it has secured GH¢900 million ($180 million) to clean the micro finance sector of the country.
The Daily Graphic reports that the Governor of the Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, who made this known at a press conference in Accra on Monday, said that it was part of the move to clean the deposit-taking sector which has been rocked by a GH¢7 billion ($1.4 billion) debt.
He explained that the amount of money needed to embark on reforms in the deposit taking sector was very huge and therefore has to be done in phases.
The newspaper reports further that the recent exercise which cleaned the banking sector cost the country GH¢11 billion ($2.2 billion).
“I am not sure we have the budgetary resources to undertake a clean up of such magnitude. We simply don’t have GH¢7 billion to clean up the entire non-bank, deposit taking institutions and so we are tackling the microfinance sector, for which GH¢900 million has been provided,” Addison said.
The newspaper noted that looking at the imminent reforms, about 705,396 depositors of distressed or collapsed microfinance companies and rural community banks risk losing a total of GH¢740.5 million if their financial resources are not shored up.
DAP/GIK/APA