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In response to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s critique of former President John Mahama’s management of the banking sector crisis, former Finance Minister Seth Terkper has responded.
This comes after Dr. Bawumia said in an interview with the media that former President John was unaware of the details of the banking sector cleanup.
“I don’t understand whether the former president has taken his time to actually understand what happened in the banking sector. Some atrocious things happened and this is why these banks had to be saved. They were not collapse. They were merged into other banks. And no banking depositor lost one cedi”, Dr. Bawumia said.
But speaking on Morning Starr with Lantam Papanko, Mr. Terkper described the New Patriotic Party (NPP) comments as “condescending”.
“With all due respect to my president and to my vice-president, I think the statement is condescending. It’s very condescending, and this man, President Mahama, has been in government for more years, for more years, and he chaired an economic management team around which there were experts, and he managed an economy,” he added.
“Let me explain what we sought to do,” he said, outlining the steps the Mahama government had done. First, President Mahama gave his approval for the audits to be carried out that caused the issue. Thus, it was finished under our direction.
“We had the audience, we took steps to address the issues in the banking sector,” he said, underscoring the Mahama administration’s attempts to resolve the situation.
Mr. Terkper provided an explanation for the Mahama administration’s decision against mergers, stating, “The United States started with that policy when the banking sector crisis started.”
“The reason they stopped was that when the crisis was found to be deep and was going to affect Bank of America and some of the big banks, they realized that they were depositors” he clarified.
“They realized that those businesses, right, were not to be punished for the sake of how the banks were run. And that’s how the banks were saved” he added.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
