BoB shuts down Kingdom Bank
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Kingdom Bank offices in Gaborone
KBAL, which has no resident depositors based in Botswana, was placed under temporary management by Bank of Botswana (BoB) two months ago due to acute liquidity constraints that resulted in depositors failing to withdraw their monies while workers went unpaid for several months.
An inventory of the balance sheet complied by the temporay managers, Delloite Botswana, thereafter showed that KBAL liablities outweighed its assets by approximately $17 million(P163 million), leading to the BoB, as the regulator, to petition the courts for an order to close down the offshore bank.
It is a clear signal that the government’s purse is empty and that our own behaviour has left veterinary officials fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. We have been here before. During COVID-19, many of us thought we knew better. We ignored simple rules, we carried on as if the danger was someone else’s problem, and the virus took lives and left our economy on its knees. We are still broke from that experience. Yet now, with FMD...