Seth Terkper, a former finance minister has responded to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s criticism of former President John Mahama’s handling of the banking sector crisis.

This comes on the back of Dr. Bawumia stating during the engagement with the media that former President Mahama is ill-informed on what happened during the banking sector clean-up.

“I don’t understand whether the former president has taken his time to actually understand what happened in the banking sector. Some atrocious things happened and this is why these banks had to be saved. They were not collapsed. They were merged into other banks. And no banking depositor lost one cedi,” Dr. Bawumia stated.

But speaking on Morning Starr with Lantam Papanko, Mr. Terkper described the New Patriotic Party (NPP) comments as “condescending”.

“With all due respect to my president and to my vice-president, I think the statement is condescending. It’s very condescending, and this man, President Mahama, has been in government for more years, for more years, and he chaired an economic management team around which there were experts, and he managed an economy,” he added.

He explained the actions taken by the Mahama administration, saying, “Let me explain what we sought to do. First, it was President Mahama who agreed that the audits that led to the crisis should be conducted. So it was concluded under our administration.”

He emphasized the Mahama administration’s efforts to address the crisis, saying, “We had the audience, we took steps to address the issues in the banking sector.”

Mr. Terkper explained why the Mahama administration did not opt for mergers, saying, “When the banking sector crisis started, the United States started with that policy. The UK started with that policy.”

He explained, “The reason they stopped was that when the crisis was found to be deep and was going to affect Bank of America and some of the big banks, they realized that they were depositors.”

“They realized that those businesses, right, were not to be punished for the sake of how the banks were run. And that’s how the banks were saved,” Mr. Terkper stated.