Holy Spirit SHS faces closure over locked up funds with GN Bank, Gold Coast securities

A private school, Holy Spirit Senior High School at Chamba in the Nanumba North Municipality of the Northern Region is facing closure over lack of funds.

The school’s monies have been locked up with the now defunct GN Bank, as it struggles to pay its staff.

Authorities and students are therefore appealing to government for help.

Following the downgrading of GN Bank to GN Savings and Loans and the subsequent revocation of the institution’s license, it has become difficult for the school to operate.

The school is now unable to attract permanent staff due to poor salaries.

The situation is negatively affecting teaching and learning in the school.

This was revealed during the climax of the school’s 10th anniversary celebration.

“While GN bank was here and operating, it was very convenient for us, we put our monies there, fees were paid in. That was really good, but by then without warnings things went the way it did and our monies are locked up there. We can’t get it out. We also had investments with Gold Coast Securities.”

“Those monies were sponsorship monies that we put aside so that new students that come we apply it to them. And the money is locked up. That is a huge blow and we are only hoping that with time, it will be possible to get that money back. It is money we can’t afford to lose.  All of us, staff members, and management were operating accounts there. So that is the problem we are faced with,” the Headmaster of the school lamented.

He said the government must assist them to get back their monies.

“We are making a passionate appeal to government to look into the issues for us get our monies. We hope it is not lost forever,” he prayed.

GN Savings and Loans was among 23 insolvent savings and loans companies and finance houses whose licenses were revoked by the Bank of Ghana in August 2019.

The central bank in a statement said the revocation was because the companies had become insolvent even after a reasonable period within which the Bank of Ghana had engaged with them in the hope that they would be recapitalized by their shareholders to return them to solvency.

“It is the Bank of Ghana’s assessment that these institutions have no reasonable prospects of recovery, and that their continued existence poses severe risks to the stability of the financial system and to the interests of their depositors,” the statement added.

BoG in the statement explained that the actions “were taken pursuant to Section 123 (1) of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), which requires the Bank of Ghana to revoke the licence of a Bank or Specialised Deposit-Taking Institution (SDI) where the Bank of Ghana determines that the institution is insolvent.”

Managers of GN Savings and Loans subsequently sued government and the Bank of Ghana over the issue.