The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah, says the Bank cannot be blamed for not monitoring a microfinance crisis after several hundreds lost their deposits through Ponzi schemes.

Commenting on the most recent scandal involving DKM Diamond Microfinance, Dr. Wampah, says the Bank cannot be blamed for not monitoring DKM and others because the law says they should undertake field visits once in a year.

He added that the Bank is in the process of liquidating assets of DKM Diamond Company Limited to pay off depositors of the defunct financial institution.

However, Dr. Wampah is not certain if proceeds from the sale of assets of DKM will be enough to pay the ¢115 million collected from depositors.

The Governor said this when briefing Parliament Committee on Finance of steps taken by the Bank to protect depositors.

DKM was granted the license to operate in October 2013, but according to the Governor, the BoG's on-site visit 6 months later revealed some breaches. 

“We realized for example that the single depositor limit and also there were other issues that were in default which we asked them to correct them," he said.  

According to him, upon reports from the Sunyani regional manager and other security agencies, BoG realized DKM was having an unsustainable interest rate. DKM was asked to come down to the normal banking lending and deposit rate instead of the promised 50% interest for depositors in two months.

Dr. Wampah said BoG is now working with all the agencies concerned in the liquidation process with the retrieval of deposits of customers in mind. 

However, the Member of Parliament for Wenchi, Prof Gyan Baffour, is against the liquidation of the business arguing that he would rather BoG buys the debt, bail the company out and pay the depositors their money. 

"Find a way to bail them out even if it involves getting other banks together to do this. This is better than the revocation of license and liquidation which will go on forever," said Prof Baffour.

Answering questions on why the central bank had to wait till things got out of hand before revoking the license, Dr. Wampah said, BoG can't always be going to the offices to do an inspection, but wait to do their yearly inspection which is what the law stipulates.

"If there are any issues we catch it during the yearly inspection. Regarding bailout, we have to still do a forensic audit of the books to ascertain those who have been paid. It is not a process you can undertake within a short time if you want to ensure you are doing the proper thing." Dr. Wampah said.    

He promised to work fast on the liquidation process with the Auditor General and consult members of the committee if he needs their expertise.