SPEECH BY FORMER CAPITAL BANK AND UT BANK STAFF AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ORGANIZED AT THE GHANA INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTRE ON 8TH MAY, 2018 TO HIGHLIGHT THE NON-PAYMENT OF THEIR EXIT PAY 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the press thank you very much for making time to attend this press conference. In this moment of loneliness, you have been a key companion and we are eternally grateful.

As you are all aware, on the 14th of August, 2017, we the staff of former Capital Bank and UT Bank were hit with the shocking and devastating news that in line with section 123 of the Banks and Specialized Deposit-

Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), Bank of Ghana had revoked the licenses of our respective Banks due to severe impairment of capital and appointed Messrs Vish Ashiagbor and Eric Nana Nipah both Directors of PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ghana) Limited as Joint Receivers for the purpose of winding down the affairs of the two Banks. 

GCB Bank was authorized by Bank of Ghana to take over the management of the defunct Banks under a Purchase and Assumption Agreement.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you can imagine how shocked and disoriented we were, when by the stroke of a pen our fortunes changed overnight, together with that of our families and dependents. 

We are not only suffering financially, we are suffering psychologically, socially and emotionally. 

We can only be grateful to God for how far he has brought us, especially in a society without strong support systems to deal with the financial and psycho-social impact of issues of such magnitude.

Ladies and Gentleman, the actions by the Government and the Bank of Ghana to protect depositors’ funds and to ensure that no customer deposit was affected is fundamental to the success of Ghana’s Banking industry. 

We believe that any waver or dither of confidence in the industry by an already unbanked population can only spell doom for the economy.

However, we believe that one missing ingredient in this equation is the plight of the workers of these defunct banks. 

Over the past few weeks, the posture of the Bank of Ghana anytime our plight has come up in media interactions is for us to deal with the Receivers. 

We believe that this high level of insensitivity to our plight is highly discomforting and most unfortunate. 

Ladies and gentlemen, our current plight of despair, joblessness, anxieties, pain and discomfort emanates from the direct action of the Bank of Ghana and by extension the Government to practically liquidate our banks. 

In taking these decisions, were our plight and that of our dependents not considered? 
We definitely do not want to believe that we the employees were considered inconsequential in the scheme of things. We refuse to believe that.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been eight agonizing months since our banks collapsed and we have kept our mouths shut in the hope that the Bank of Ghana and the government by extension would seek our interests. 

We genuinely believed that we would not be left this worse off.

It’s unfortunate that eight months down the line we have not received our Exit Pay, majority of us are jobless and the few who were lucky to have been employed by GCB Bank are also worse off in terms of remuneration. 

For our former colleagues at Capital Bank, it’s instructive to note that their End of Service Benefit which they contributed from their own salaries on monthly basis and was invested on their behalf by CBL Investments, have still not being paid despite instructions by the Joint Receivers to pay. 

We would like to pose a simple question to CBL Investments; is our ESB missing? 

Ladies and gentlemen, our demands are simple.
As per the Joint Receivers’ letter dated 15th January, 2018, an agreement was reached with UNICORN; our representatives to pay all staff of these defunct banks an Exit Package. 

However, nothing has been paid to staff. We are therefore appealing for all entitlements to be paid to us as a matter of urgency.

To meet personal obligations, employees were also given some loans. 

As per basic rules governing credit, our staff loans were taken for a specific tenure. 

However, these extraneous circumstances have contrived to truncate the tenure and also deprive us of our livelihood. 

As responsible citizens and bankers we are mindful of our obligations and as such, we are rightfully asking for our loans to be discounted so we can discharge our obligations to the Receiver.

Finally, many of us had outstanding leave days and as per the Labour Act 2003, sections 25 and 26, we are requesting for all outstanding leave to be computed and paid for.

We will therefore like to re-iterate our appeal made earlier to;The President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; The Vice President of Ghana, His Excellency Alhaji Mahmoud Bawumia;
The Honorable Minister of Finance; Ken Ofori-Atta; Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison;
Joint Receivers;
Ministry of Labour
Trade Union Congress 
And other relevant stakeholders;

To intervene to ensure that what is rightfully ours is paid to us.

We will send a formal petition to the Presidency and we are hopeful that the government will listen to our plight and come to our aid.

As we stated in our maiden press release, we believe the laws governing liquidation in Ghana deserves a critical rethink because the current status leaves employees very vulnerable and dispensable. 

Even though we are only a very small fly in the scheme of things, we believe that we are fighting for posterity by bringing the plight of workers during liquidation to the forefront. 

This is a hard battle but we believe the battle is the Lords.

We thank the media for giving us a listening ear.

God bless you. 

GBCONLINE
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