Some members of the minority shareholders community have called for an investigation of Heritage Bank’s management led by Akinola George-Taylor and directors over its failure.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently revoked the bank’s operating license and appointed the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) as liquidator.
According to the apex bank, the revocation was necessary because “the board and management of the bank have not been able to improve the bank’s financial performance, a situation which constitutes a threat to financial stability.”
George-Taylor was confirmed as the substantive managing director/chief executive officer of Heritage Bank in April 2023.
The former GTBank director, who joined Heritage Bank as acting MD/CEO on September 12, 2022, succeeded Ifie Sekibo as MD/CEO following approval of the CBN under Godwin Emefiele.
Speaking with PUNCH, national coordinator of Progressive Shareholders Association Boniface Okezie said George-Taylor and his team should be questioned for how they ran the bank.
“What is the fate of some other banks in the sector? Are they strong and viable? They should tell us. The management should be called for questioning. Those who ran the bank aground should be called for questioning. It is not enough that NDIC should liquidate,” he said.
“There must be a probe to recover people’s money. What assets does the bank have? CBN should probe the collapse of the bank so that others can learn. This is not good enough, something has to be done to arrest the situation.”
Also, national coordinator of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria Moses Igbrude said, “They must probe the management of the bank. They should not let it slide because it will happen again if people are let off the hook. Let them investigate exactly what happened to learn lessons and ensure it does not happen again.”
Meanwhile, the NDIC has said it will pay the bank’s customers who have less than N5m in their bank accounts first while others will be paid after the bank’s assets have been sold.
