NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 18 – The incoming Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njunguna Ndug’u has rebuffed claims that he oversaw the collapse of banks while serving as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor.
Professor Ndungu was responding to Majority Leader’s Kimani Ichungwah question on whether under his tenure financial institutions went down.
“During my time, there is no bank that collapsed. I was Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya from March 2007 to the beginning of March in 2015. That does not mean……that there were no problems. There were problems,” the former CBK Governor was responding to questions from the National Assembly Committee on Appointment.
Over the past few years, Kenya’s financial sector has recorded an increase in the number of banks winding up due to mismanagement and liquidity challenges.
Some of the lenders that were forced to shutdown include Imperial Bank, Chase Bank, Dubai Bank Kenya, among others.
The collapse of these lenders saw thousands of clients lose billions of shillings amid sellout challenges.
He, however, said that it was under his administration that many banks merged.
“But you have to make sure that you develop new solutions and interventions to save the market and that was what we did,”
“There were several mergers but those mergers were actually geared towards preventing any collapse of the banks because market situations do change. Some projections in marketplace and so the regulator must know what to do,” Ndungu added.
