The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to investigate the cause of the under performance of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB).
The General Secretary of the TUC, Mr Kofi Asamoah, who made the call in Accra last Tuesday, said the bank was borrowing between GH¢₵60m and GH¢₵100m from the interbank market on a daily basis to survive.
He said the bank had for the past three years not met the Bank of Ghana’s (BoGs) adequacy capital ratio (ACR).
He was speaking at a debate organised by the Socialist Forum (SF) on the theme: “The Privatisation of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and Its Impact on the People of Ghana.”
Questions to ask Mr Asamoah said there was the need to ask questions as to what led ADB to that state of affairs.
He urged the government to do a thorough investigation into the causes that had led to the failure of the bank which was once vibrant.
The board of the bank has put on hold the decision to float shares to inject more capital into its operations, following an objection by workers and threats of legal action by the Minority in Parliament.
TUCs position on privatisation Mr Asamoah said the TUC kicked against the government’s plans of privatising state-owned enterprises and argued that the government that established the state-owned enterprises at the time was determined to make them succeed.
He said government had a few capable hands, at least, as defined by educational level at that time.
Mr Asamoah said only 16 per cent of Ghanaians had ever attended school in 1960 and for every 10,000 Ghanaians at the time, only seven had university education, but the government was determined to solve problems and not to shy away from them.
He said in contrast “we now have 170 university graduates out of every 10,000 Ghanaians , yet we seem to be telling the World Bank that we do not have the will and the ability to solve problems”.
Sale of SOEs destroys economy For his part, the Convener of the Socialist Forum of Ghana, Mr Kwasi Pratt, also called on government not to allow the bank to offload its shares.
According to him, the continued sale of state-owned enterprises by the government was destroying the economy.
He said such tendencies could be interpreted to mean that the government was not in charge of the economy, but yet pretended to be in control.
Privatisation; a good move Minister of State at the Presidency in charge of Private and Public Sector, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, however, disagreed with the assertions by Mr Asamoah and Mr Kwesi Pratt and said the sale of state-owned enterprises by the government did not mean that the government was not in charge of the economy.
He said instead, it was a move to inject more capital into the economy to propel the development of the country.
He further explained that privatisation of the state-owned enterprises did not mean out right sale of those enterprises.
He said those enterprises being privatised had been mismanaged over the years and used as an avenue to siphon government funds, hence the need for them to be privatised for the needed capital to be injected to bring them back to life.
He said again that the state’s involvement in the setting up and running of enterprises had not been successful and could not be relied upon as a source of developing the country’s economy, hence the privatisation.
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