At the NDC manifesto launch at Winneba, Mahama pledged to reinstate the licenses of financial firms that he claimed the NPP government had unfairly closed.

Dr. Bawumia, however, expressed surprise at Mahama’s position at a media appearance, claiming that the NPP’s actions preserved the deposits of 4.6 million bank clients who would have lost money if the institutions had not stepped in.

He clarified that certain institutions had committed heinous acts, like lending money beyond what was permitted, mismanaging funds, and making investments in private real estate.

Dr. Bawumia emphasized that in order to avert a systemic crisis, certain banks had to merge since the banking industry was in danger of collapsing.

Before continuing, he suggested that Mahama study the reports from the Receiver and the Bank of Ghana in order to gain a better understanding of the circumstances.

“We prevented 4.6 million bank depositors from losing their money, as those banks were in danger of failing. I don’t know if the previous president has spent enough time learning about the financial industry. These banks have to be preserved because of the horrible things that occurred.

“Everyone insisted that they did not collapse; instead, they were combined with other banks and no banking depositor lost a single cedi. However, terrible things happened; certain banks disregarded all regulations and gave loans far in excess of the restrictions for a single obligor.

“The Bank of Ghana gave them, in some cases, $1 billion to bail them out of the mess, but they simply made things worse. Instead of using the capital provided to other banks to solve their own problems, the banks established Capital Bank using the money meant to save the situation. They started another business, which also failed, using the money they had taken from the central bank. A few grabbed the money and put it into investments in homes.

Thus, the governor arrived to report against this backdrop, and for the past eight years, this has been one of my worst nightmares. The majority of people were unaware of how dangerously close the banking system was to collapsing. We were able to preserve 4. 6 million depositors by doing this, even though we had to combine several of these banking sectors into other banks.

“I’ll ask the previous president, if he hasn’t already, to go read the reports from the BoG and the receiver and familiarize himself before continuing to speak on issues that he obviously doesn’t comprehend.

Before saying anything more, he needs to make sure they understand. He also can’t give them the license of a bank because that would be against the law.