Former Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam has warned that a Court of Appeal ruling restoring GN Savings and Loans’ licence carries risks for financial stability and regulatory credibility.
In a Facebook post on Saturday reacting to the decision, Amin Adam said court rulings must be respected but the development raised serious questions about the durability of Ghana’s banking reforms and the possible politicisation of financial regulation.
“Financial stability is not a campaign promise. It is a national asset,” he wrote.
He criticised officials who suggested President John Dramani Mahama was responsible for the ruling, calling such claims disturbing and misleading about the role of institutions in the decision. Some voices aligned with the government have cast the judgment as vindication of Mahama’s pledge to restore licences lost during the cleanup.
Amin Adam, who is also the Member of Parliament for Karaga, said the 2017 to 2019 cleanup, during which the Bank of Ghana revoked the licences of insolvent and non-compliant institutions, was painful but necessary, citing assessments that it addressed weak capitalisation and governance failures.
He warned that reversing regulatory decisions could create moral hazard, weaken deterrence and foster expectations that enforcement actions might be revisited for political or legal reasons.
The former minister also flagged fiscal risk, saying Ghana, fresh from exiting an International Monetary Fund programme, has little room to absorb possible compensation claims, depositor liabilities or recapitalisation costs from contested decisions.
He urged regulators to clarify the ruling’s implications and to conduct fresh prudential checks on capital adequacy, liquidity and governance before any restored institution resumes business, and he called on the Finance Ministry to disclose any fiscal exposure.
GN’s owners have rejected the political framing. A lawyer for businessman Papa Kwesi Nduom said the outcome was purely a legal one, decided on the merits after years of litigation.
