Banks collapse: Securities Industry Association to intensify public awareness

The 2018 edition of the Capital Market Week celebrations will focus on intensive public awareness on activities of the capital market, the Securities Industry Association has said.

This year’s edition seeks to focus on effective public awareness and will assemble experts from the financial services sector to deliberate on how to quell a looming crisis in the financial services sector.

Celebrating under the Theme:  “Transforming the Capital Market through Better Cooperate Governance,”  the association will use the week-long celebrations to discuss and further explore available means to deal with the problem.

This will include identifying long-term measures to safeguard the industry and also increase public confidence in the sector

The association will, however, embark on outreach programs and a couple of seminars to educate the general public on dynamics of the capital market.

This year, in particular, has been very challenging for Ghana’s financial services sector as weak governance structures and lack of effective monitoring mechanisms culminated by regulatory challenges, have resulted in the collapse of 7 banks that could possibly have dire consequences on other sectors of the economy.

This was disclosed by the president of the association Mr. Daniel Asiedu, when the members embarked a health walk at the Burma Camp in Accra.

The 3-hour program saw members walking through some streets of Burma Camp to 37 Military Hospital and back.

 He believes the problems were caused by the lack of adequate cooperate governance standards.

“We hope that in broadening the debate, we will find out how we can use cooperate governance to raise the standards we want to get the capital market to, ” said Mr. Asiedu.

On her part, the Executive Secretary of the Association, Marian Dsane, thanked the members for their massive participation.

She explained that the fitness walk was for members and the general public to exercise to maintain a healthy living.

Marian Dsane encouraged this kind of activity to afford members of the cooperate community, who are always busy, an opportunity to exercise, interact and network.

She announced that there will be a media launch to formally open the celebration early this week that will be followed by advocacy programs including an investors’ education talk show on TV.

There will also be a Capital Market engagement for regulators, policymakers and financial sector players.