Accra, Aug. 25, – Mr Yeboah Amoa, Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) today called for a review of the Companies Code of 1963. This is to bring provisions on fees and fines in the code to realistic levels to reflect current socio-economic realities. Mr Amoa said some of the fees and fines to be paid by companies have become archaic and have lost their effectiveness while their deterrent effect is gone altogether. Opening a five day seminar on Asset-Backed Securitization organised by the GSE, Mr Amoa said asset-backed securitization is about one of the newest and most important of the new technologies of financial engineering. It is a carefully structured process whereby loans and other receivables are packaged, underwritten and sold in the form of securities or instruments commonly known as assets-backed securities. The seminar, attended by about 40 lower, middle,and upper level managers and other professionals involved in commercial, industrial and real estate lending, is to provide participants with an indepth knowledge of how asset securitization works both in general and particular – through several case studies. Mr Amoa regretted that, Ghana still had laws with fees and fines under the companies code ranging between five and 10 old Ghana Pounds. ”Moreso at a time when interest rates are 47.8 per cent on government treasury bills. “The most punitive of some of these fines are just five per cent and do not have any impact”. He said the private sector must be developed but there should not be discrimination against the capital that will be needed to do so in favour of treasury bills.
