Taxpayers will loose yet another Sh.1billion after Equity Bank trashed a loan claim by the Government through the Treasury. – By Gerald Gekara
CEO, Equity Bank James has told off the Government over a Sh.654million debt Treasury claims it borrowed.
In an interview published in the Business Daily, CEO Dr. Mwangi claims he owes the Government nothing and therefore won’t pay.
Treasury told Parliament in April that it was owed Sh.907billion by parastatals, including Equity Bank.
“I don’t understand. We have never borrowed from government. Maybe there is another Equity but not this one. Treasury should look for their cash elsewhere. We owe them nothing”, Mwangi said.
Equity returned a net profit of Sh19.79 billion last year, surpassing KCB Group as the most profitable lender in the country, and now has Sh127.4 billion in retained profits.
The Treasury records do not specify when or why the government loan was made to Equity.
The Treasury’s list of enterprises with outstanding State loans includes Co-operative Bank (Sh287.42 million) and three microfinance institutions: Kenya Women Finance Trust (Sh100.56 million), Faulu Kenya (Sh98.15 million), and Rafiki Micro-Finance (Sh98.15 million) (Sh46.4 million).
The five lenders are among the State-owned enterprises that have paid a pittance of Sh40.05 billion, or 4.42 percent of the Sh907.06 billion borrowed.
