Isaac Adongo Asks: Why Does Vice President Dr Bawumia Take Delight In Being Untruthful?

Isaac Adongo, MP for Bolgatanga Central
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President, Ghana

Accra, Ghana, September 10, 2019//-When we say the Vice President, Dr Mahamoud Bawumia, always tells untruths, people think we say it for fun.

Now, this is one piece of evidence so loud and gigantic that he can’t run away from.
PwC, which conducted a survey with bank executives found that the vindictive recapitalisation exercise brought in GHS1.5 billion in fresh capital.
Dr Bawumia, in his bedroom, reported that the same recapitalisation injected GHS4bn in fresh capital into the banking sector. And he said that at the Town Hall Meeting of the Economic Management Team in April this year, where he embellished the facts in accounting for his stewardship in government.
Yes, the PwC survey covered 19 banks but before Dr Bawumia finds solace in that let’s ask which banks didn’t participate. PwC listed the banks that didn’t participate as UMB, NIB, Consolidated Bank and Omnic-BSIC Bank.
Now, three of those absentee banks, so to say (UMB, NIB and Omni-BSIC) are some ofthe GAT banks that have been recapitalised by mouth, as not a single pesewa has gone into any of them in the name of recapitalisation.
Consolidated Bank, which i the fourth was recapitalised with GHS450.
Thus, if we add that to the GHS1.5 billion that the PwC survey found to have been fresh capital injection, we will get GHS1.95 billion, not even half of Walewale Adam Smith’s concocted GHS4 billion fresh injection.
So, why does Dr Bawumia take pride in peddling falsehoods, especially on matters that can hardly be covered?
Indeed, when the fundamentals are weak, lying will become the only option.
But now that PwC has settled the issue on how much the recapitalisation yielded in fresh capital, I hope the Bank of Ghana, the Ministry of Finance and Dr Bawumia will revise their notes and honorably admit that the exercise did less to make the sector capitalised contrary to what they have been tell Ghanaians.
It is interesting to note that the Ghc1.5 billion fresh capital injection, came at the cost of Dr Bawumia and Nana Addo collapsing 9 banks, 23 savings and loans companies, 347 microfinance companies and wasting over Ghc23 billion of taxpayers’ money. It also led to the wiping off of the SEC-regulated finance industry.
It is only a myopic and overhyped economist who will describe a set of banking sector reforms with such abysmal outcomes as successful and leading to the sector being well-capitalised.
For such a person, well capitalised banks are banks with minimum capital irrespective of the level of  stress, risks and weaknesses on their balance sheets.
Let it be known that in a risk-based financial regulation, a well capitalised bank is one with adequate capital to mitigate the risks and weaknesses on its balance sheet and not just with a regulatory-required minimum capital.
This is measured by capital adequacy defined by Basell II/III framework and stringent requirements of the various IFRSs.
Ghana’s capital adequacy in this regard is just 13.5% above the risk-based minimum  capital adequacy and in danger of falling below the 13% minimum threshold as IFRS9 is now seriously threatening to wipe off the loan books of our banks.
This is a shame, given the costs and adverse consequences we have had to endure for this calamitous exercise.
Under normal circumstance, I would have asked Dr Gideon Boako, Dr Bawmia’s Spokesperson to have advised him to stop peddling falsehoods and basing his conclusions on wrong assumptions.
However, given recent events, when he also peddled falsehood in an attempt to defend his boss, I am tempted to say the Vice President’s Office lacks the sincerely of mind and thoughts to be taken seriously by any meaningful Ghanaian.
Need I said more? A purge of the falsehood traits in Dr Bawumia’s office and the deliberate attempt to deceive Ghanaians is a must!
By Isaac Adongo, MP for Bolgatanga Central in the Upper East Region, Ghana 

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