SoNA: Many Finance Houses Were Running As Glorified Ponzi Schemes – Akufo-Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has revealed that biggest economic challenge he inherited was the banking sector crisis.
He told Parliament while presenting his last State of the Nation Address (SoNA) in his first term on Tuesday January 5 that many of the banks he came to meet were in distress, a situation he said threatened the economy.
Perhaps the biggest challenge “My government inherited was the state of the banking sector. Many of our banks were in distress,” he said.
He indicated that this was due to the failure of the regulatory institutions to perform their duties well.
“The supervisory agencies were unfortunately not performing their duties. Many of our finance houses were running what can be called glorified Ponzi scheme.”
Therefore, he said, a radical measure must be undertaken to deal with it, hence the clean up exercise.
The approach towards the clean up exercise was criticized by a section on the Ghanaian public with others saying the government could have rescued the failing banks rather than collapsing them.
But last Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta defended the approach that was adopted towards the clean-up exercise.