Underperforming SoBs
A day after the Finance Minister frankly admitted to the directors' failures in the state owned banks contributing to below par performance of these institutions, the central bank governor has come down hard on the manner in which these banks are being run. This of course is not news. The media has covered the issue extensively ever since the ill-fated loan sanctioning by one such bank in the Hall-Mark debacle. Volumes have been written on the subject; countless seminars held and the matter has been discussed to no end in electronic media. Hall-Mark was the first scam to hit the radar and there have been others since then and ironically, most of them involved state-owned-banks sanctioning loans on what inevitably turned out to be projects not worth financing.
Now that the most influential people at the helm of financial governance are admitting that most directors are incompetent and dishonest, what measures will be taken to counter their influence as Board members is what the public would like to know. We are informed that the Financial Integrity and Customer Services Department will be proactive in strictly monitoring and supervising the underperforming banks and non-banking financial institutions. Again, at the end of the day, the question that must be asked is whether the political will is going to be mustered to address the issue of removing incompetent directors who are allegedly political appointees. Will they be held to account, or, replaced by experienced bankers. Otherwise it is merely an academic exercise.
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