People keep asking what wrong I did to Ofori-Atta, but I don’t have the answers – Dr. Nduom

A Ghanaian business mogul and serial entrepreneur, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has disclosed that several people have asked him what he did wrong to former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

The founder of the Progressive People’s Party, who had his GN Bank downgraded to Savings and Loans and later had his licence revoked, said that for the past two weeks, he has been asked the same question over and over again.

Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, who seemed to not have answers to the questions, threw it back on his official Facebook page, asking if anyone had the answers.

He wrote “Many, many people have asked me the following question these past two weeks:

“What at all did you do to Ken Ofori-Atta?”

Does anyone have the answer/s?”

Background

The Bank of Ghana in 2019 revoked the licenses of 23 insolvent savings and loans companies and finance house companies.

The move according to the Central Bank was part of efforts to restore confidence in the country’s banking and specialized deposit-taking sectors.

The central bank said the firms, which included GN Savings and Loans Ltd., Unicredit Savings and Loans Ltd., First African Savings & Loans Company Ltd., First Ghana Savings and Loans Co. Ltd. and Sterling Financial Services Ltd., have no reasonable prospects of recovery and that their continued existence poses severe risks to the financial system’s stability and to the depositors’ interests.

The central bank added that the firms’ licenses were revoked because they remained insolvent despite being given “a reasonable period” to be recapitalized by their shareholders to return them to solvency.

In May 2023, the central bank withdrew the licenses of 386 insolvent microfinance and microcredit companies.

Dr. Nduom went to court to seek redress over the matter.

But a Human Rights Court in Accra in 2024 dismissed the application filed by Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, GN Savings and Loans, and another for human rights infractions exhibited by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) in revoking the entity’s license.

The Court ruled that the central bank was carrying out its lawful mandate in the interest of the shareholders and by extension the public, and could not be faulted.

After the court cleared that the applicants had the requisite capacity and had properly invoked the jurisdiction of the court, the judge proceeded to deal, substantively, with the issues of discrimination, unreasonableness, unfairness, and violation of the administrative rights of the applicants.

On the issue of administrative rights violation, the applicant asserted that an honest assessment by the BoG would have proved that the GN savings and loans were solvent contrary to the Bank of Ghana’s assertion that the entity was not solvent.

The plaintiffs contended that if the debt owed by government was paid, the capital adequacy ratio would have been met.

“If the Bank of Ghana had taken into consideration the financial circumstances of the company, and the fact that government owed us, they would have seen that the company was solvent,” the lawyer said.

The applicant’s dissatisfaction is based on miscalculation, and they claim that this amounted to a violation.

“The bank, as an administrative body, was unfair, unreasonable and irrational in its administrative functions, the lawyer for the applicant averred. No reasonable person faced with the same set of facts would have arrived at the decision taken by the Bank of Ghana to revoke its license.”

The applicant maintains that several actions to demand their money from government had failed and so it was unreasonable for the BoG to have revoked their license considering their circumstances.

The court dismissed the claim by the plaintiffs indicating that as an administrative body fortified by the Bank of Ghana Act, it was incumbent on the Bank of Ghana to ensure a strict supervision regime and once the applicants did not meet the threshold, and were not solvent at the time of revocation, their duty was to take the decision it took.

It was the Court’s decision that, the plaintiffs can take the matter of debt owed them by government with the Finance Ministry.

“It’s manifestly clear that the BoG took a reasonable decision to protect the public interest,“ the judge said.

On the issue of discrimination, the court concluded that the applicants were not discriminated against since other entities suffered a similar fate as that of the applicants.

The court said the applicant was not discriminated against and their complaints are unfounded and without merit.