The collapse of UT Bank in 2017 has resulted in severe business challenges for other companies under the UT group, the group CEO Prince Kofi Amoabeng has revealed.
According to him, the UT brand has lost its past glory as the collapse of the UT Bank has “defamed” the UT brand.
Kofi Amoabeng said in a statement that the situation among other things has resulted in difficulties in servicing payments due its investors.
“The actions so far taken by the central bank have adversely affected the operations of the remaining group of companies of UT. The UT brand which was previously a superbrand a few years ago has been totally defamed. The situation has, for instance, led to difficulties in the servicing of payments due investors,” he noted in his statement.
He expressed regret that the collapse of the bank had left many of the bank’s staff with nothing to show for their years of dedication to the company.
More importantly to me today though, is the inability of several workers who once prided themselves as UT staff and now have little or nothing to show for their years of dedication and service; the negative impact on the other UT companies in the eyes of investors who believed in us and our vision to see a Ghanaian owned company become a successful global brand, he said.
The UT Holdings group has businesses including UT Properties Ltd, UT Financial Services Ltd. (Nigeria), UT Private Security Ltd., UT Logistics Ltd., and UT Collections Ltd., and Gateway Wealth Management Ltd.
UT Bank, as well as Capital Bank, were collapsed and handed over to state-owned GBC Bank in August 2017 because they had become highly insolvent despite receiving liquidity support from the Bank of Ghana totally over GH¢1.4 billion.
Among the challenges of UT Bank, according to a BoG commissioned report, the Bank had given loans to many of its related parties without due processes and given several other bad loans to external companies.
The report also cited poor governance structure; thus fewer than expected number of directors and a majority of directors who were not independent as expected.
The CEO of the bank, Prince Kofi Amoabeng was also accused of failing to disclose a GH¢5 million loan payment money he had received from one of the bank’s client to the board.
GHS5 million undisclosed fund was personal money
But Kofi Amoabeng denied the claim his statement said the money he received was not the payment for a loan but proceeds of the sale of his personal house at Roman Ridge in Accra to one of the bank’s clients.
While expressing disappointment that the bank whose vision was to support Ghanaian businesses and become a global Ghanaian business had to collapse after 20 years of operation.
He, however, indicated that he will continue to “co-operate with all state agencies probing the development for finality to be brought to this matter.”
– By: Citinewsroom.com
