The Ghana Commercial Bank,

What do you do if your business is being held back by virtue of the government being the biggest shareholder and also biggest lender from your bank. The Ghana Commercial Bank's solution is to ask for more capital and for more business from the government. Unfortunately for the Ghana Commercial Bank, the Government is not too pleased with its branch expansion program ouside of the country. It is also, quite rightly, not keen to expand this cosy relationship.

We visited the Ghana Commercial Bank last month. To us, the solution is for the government to dispose of its stake and to put the government's refinery loan on a commercial footing.