Some players in the banking industry are calling for an increase in the capital base of universal commercial banks in Ghana to enable government rely on internal funds for infrastructural development in the country.
According to them the Bank of Ghana must help increase the capacity of local banks to compete with foreign ones to fund big projects like the cocoa syndicated loan and bonds meant to expand the economy. Speaking to Citi Business News Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Limited (GT Bank) Lekan Sanusi said Ghana needs to put in place policies to ensure that banks invest in public infrastructure.
“We did that in Nigeria and quite honestly we are reaping the rewards, maybe that is the direction Ghana should go. In the case of Nigeria it was induced by the regulator who felt that look am looking at the list of top 1000 banks in the world and am not seeing any Nigerian bank and I want to see about ten Nigerian banks in the world’s top 1000 banks soon, what do we do?, then the move was increase the capital base for the banks which helped that when Nigeria was undergoing power companies privatization a lot of deals was done in the country which you can see a situation where the benefits of an expansion which will help the country. The benefits will always be internalized.” He said.
CitiFMOnline