Clark said he had written to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the involvement of Okowa in the floating of Premium Bank, which he allegedly used to lodge all the derivation funds.

Clark, who spoke in an interview on Wednesday, said the former governor “autocratically mismanaged the funds”.

He added that Okowa sidelined the Delta state oil producing areas development commission (DESOPADEC).

DESOPADEC is an interventionist agency established to manage a 13 percent oil derivation fund to drive infrastructural development of the oil-producing communities in the state.

“Okowa said he had been spending the money. Their answer was that they spent N5 billion on paying pensioners. How does that come under 13 percent?” Clark asked.

“And they also spent the money building a university in Okowa’s village. I mentioned in the letter [to the EFCC] that Okowa has 13 companies. I told him he put the 13 percent (derivation funds) into these 13 companies and let him deny it.

“The one paid to Delta state came to N1.767 trillion. Instead of paying 50 percent (of the N1.760 trillion) to the DESOPADEC as provided by the law, which is automatic, he now held the 13 percent fund — the entire money, dishing out instalmentally and approving every contract the DESOPADEC had awarded.

“So, Okowa has embezzled our money. It’s not even accounted for in his annual budget.”

The post Edwin Clark writes EFCC, alleges Okowa ‘misappropriated over N1.7 trn’ appeared first on New Mail Nigeria.

Announcing the decision, Ernest Addison, Governor of Bank of Ghana, said the two years long banking sector cleanup had come to an end, leaving 23 universal banks out of an initial 35.

While Premium Bank had continually breached the capital adequacy ratio(CAR) requirements since December 2017 making it insolvent.

It had also not been able to meet the new minimum capital threshold of about $83 million as of the December 2018 deadline.

For Heritage Bank, Addison explained that while the bank which was licenced in 2016 was not insolvent, there were anomalies with its licencing, the source of its initial capital and related party transactions.

Assets of the two banks have therefore been awarded to the newly-established Consolidated Bank of Ghana (CBG).

This brings to nine the number of banks which collapsed under the sector reforms which started in 2017.

While assets of two of those banks were awarded to the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), seven have been consolidated under the CBG.

In addition to that, the local branch of Bank of Baroda, an Indian international bank, was also liquidated early this year and its businesses taken over by Stanbic Bank, local branch of Standard Bank of South Africa.

With the cleaning up completed, Addison expressed confidence that the banking sector had become stronger.

“We have completed the clean-up, in two years we are seeing a banking sector which is consolidated, which is more liquid and is more robust,’’ the governor added.

The post Ghana liquidates Heritage, Premium Banks for breach of CAR appeared first on New Mail Nigeria.