Dr Kwabena Duffuor II
Shareholders of uniBank, one of five local banks, which were recently merged into a new entity – Consolidated Bank – have called on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to provide them with an official copy of the KPMG report on the financial condition and future prospects of their bank.
According to the shareholders, they want a copy of the report to enable them address its contents.
They said they were not aware of a report purporting to be from KPMG on the financial condition and future prospects of uniBank Ghana in the media.
The shareholders also said what bothered them the most was the fact that they wrote to the Central Bank in a letter dated 3 rd August, this year, to request a copy of the report but were told on 13 th August, 2018, through a letter from the secretary of the Bank that it was unable to provide a copy of the official administrator’s report to them.
“No reason was assigned for the refusal to provide the report to the shareholders…It’s unacceptable for the Bank of Ghana and KPMG to deny shareholders access to the report, even as material in the report is being widely disseminated to discredit uniBank and instigate public contempt and opprobrium against uniBank.”
Also, they said no opportunity had been provided to shareholders of uniBank to respond to any purported findings of KPMG and “yet they were being tried by the court of public opinion without the full facts of the case.”
Additionally, they stated: “We note that in the purported report it is stated that the said report should not be made available or communicated to any party without the prior written consent of KPMG.”
“There is a further statement by KPMG that we have not sought to verify information contained herein…accordingly we are unable to determine the extent to which information and explanations provided to us are complete and accurate and the report should be read in that context.”
The shareholders said that the recent appointment of KPMG as the Receiver in respect of some assets of uniBank and four other banks showed that it (KPMG) was “seeking to benefit from the report that it provided to the Bank of Ghana through a further paid engagement, a clear conflict of interest situation which does not put KPMG in a good light.”
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