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The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, has called on government to quickly come to the aid of workers who were affected by the collapse of some indigenous banks in the country.

He is asking that decent packages be explored for the embattled bank staff in order to get them back on their feet.

Addressing pressmen at the Parliament House, yesterday, Mr. Iddrisu said government had failed in properly handling the crises, especially the issues of job losses.

“What is it that the government of Ghana can do to find new life for those institutions as possible. Don’t forget that the US did it when they had a financial crisis. Let’s see what role the state of Ghana can play” he said.

Mr. Iddrisu said the local banks’ “contribution to the growth of the economy, the growth of the service sector and employment generally must be jealously and religiously protected.”

“In the public interest and for the public good, parliament and the finance committee must be concerned about the banking sector and employment in the banking sector and the consequence of severance and resulting unemployment arising out of the collapse of those financial institutions,” he added.

Thousands of people are reported to have lost their jobs after five indigenous banks had had their licenses withdrawn over liquidity challenges and two others, UT and Capital Banks being taken over by GCB Bank, somewhere last year.

The five banks―Beige, Construction, Royal, uniBank and Sovereign Banks have now been merged into the Ghana Consolidated Bank.

Meanwhile, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) is yet to meet the Receiver of the Consolidated Bank Ghana over the exit packages for workers of the five collapsed banks that have now been merged into the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.

The labour union is hopeful its intervention will reduce the impact of job layoffs on the livelihoods of the affected employees.