The Ghana Association of Banks (GAB) has warned that its members may suspend lending to government workers whose salaries are processed through the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department if outstanding payment issues are not resolved.
Chief Executive Officer of GAB, John Awuah, said persistent delays in payments to banks were forcing financial institutions to absorb losses and could undermine efforts to reduce the industry’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio.
Speaking to journalists at the Association’s 43rd Annual General Meeting on October 8, 2026, Awuah said banks were under pressure to reduce their NPL ratio to 10 per cent in line with the Bank of Ghana’s directive.
He warned that achieving the target would be difficult if payment delays and what he described as “willful defaults” continued to affect the sector.
“At this point, I would like to say that as a banking community, we are now very hard-pressed and we are likely going to take a very unusual step of suspending lending to all government workers whose salaries are processed through the Controller and Accountant-General,” he said.
Awuah explained that the problem of delayed payments to banks by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department had persisted for years, despite repeated concerns from the banking industry.
He said banks regularly provide loans to public sector employees, including teachers, nurses, doctors and other government workers, with the expectation that repayments will be made as agreed.
Drawing a comparison with customers who expect their deposits to be returned when requested, he stressed that banks also needed to recover money they had lent to borrowers.
“When we lend to teachers, to nurses, to doctors and other public sector workers, just as when you come to a bank, and you give a bank a hundred thousand, and you want your money, you want your hundred thousand back, when we lend, we want our money back,” he stated.
The GAB chief executive also disclosed that the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance had intervened when the banks previously considered taking action over the issue.
However, he indicated that the problem remained unresolved, leaving banks to bear the financial consequences of outstanding loan repayments.
According to Awuah, the situation is particularly concerning when public sector workers have received their salaries but the corresponding loan repayments have not been transferred to the banks.
He said the circumstances would be more understandable if the workers themselves had not been paid their salaries, making it difficult for them to meet their loan obligations.
“We are in October; we are in arrears for three months, and banks are having to take the hit because the Controller has refused to do what they have to do,” he said.
“If teachers’ salaries were in arrears, nurses’ and doctors’ salaries were in arrears, and because of that, payments of loans to banks are also in arrears, we can understand. But they have been paid, which means that they have settled the loan,” he added.
The proposed suspension of lending would affect government workers whose salaries are processed through the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, potentially limiting their access to credit if the outstanding payment concerns are not addressed.
