Labour Consultant, Austin Gamey, has advised workers of defunct UT and Capital Banks to appeal to the Governor of the Central Bank to get their monies paid them.
“The workers should in all humility meet Dr Ernest Addison to get him to activate his discretionary powers given to him under Act 930 to jump the queue of all indebtedness and pay them part of their monies and wait for the rest,” Mr Gamey told Business Finder in an interview.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) in August 2017, revoked the licenses of UT and Capital Banks and handedthem over to GCB Bank.
The liabilities of the two banks, according to the regulator, overwhelmed their assets, leaving the BoG with no option but to undertake a purchase and assumption transaction as the least costly method of dealing with a collapse.
According to Mr Gamey, section 135 of the BoGAct 930 lists according to prioritisation, how pay outs should be affected, which include paying all statutory indebtedness of the defunct back including customers.
“The workers are fourth or fifth on the list and they cannot be jumped; if they will or must be jumped then the law gives the Governor of the Bank of Ghana the discretionary powers to intervene maybe on humanitarian grounds and instruct the payment of some of their monies,”
The Labour Consultant advised the workers to engage the Governor and let him know their plight, one year after the collapse of the banks.
“They should explain to him that they have had no jobs to do since their jobs were truncated by GCB Bank and so they are unable to cater for their dependants; They should calmly tell him that they are aware that the customers are more important but the truth is that they, the workers are also customers of the same bank and so have suffered double jeopardy,” Mr Gamey advised.
He explained that in situations that the workers were owed monies spanning a period of six months, the law allows part payment of those monies, not all, so that the depositors who are the customers of the bank who have now become victims of the circumstance will have to be taken care of first.
In this case the depositors’ monies far exceed what will be realised from the assets of the defunct banks, and that is the reason the BoG had to come in with additional funds to be able to pay depositors.
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