In his presentation, Heritage Bank boss, Sekibo, stated: “As bankers what we look at is your cash or your ability to borrow or reserves kept with us, or documents or some other means that we can account for. But the elephant which is a sour point in this country is the minimum wage. For me I look forward to the minimum wage because it will swell the bankers’ balances, more monies will come to the accounts of the customers and so it is interesting.
“But the challenge is that it will increase our liquidity, and if it does increase our liquidity, yes there will be more money to spend, but there is one interesting measurement for economic growth and that is money supply measurement. If that goes on, the effect is that there will be inflation. Once there is inflation, it means that the money that we are hoping that we get, goes through the roof by increased prices and we are just going to lose that money without even getting the benefit of that increase.
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“Of course, the regulators will almost immediately, find a way to mop that up so that they can keep inflation within parameters that are reasonable. I have to push these two fixes for us to know that, yes there is need for economic growth and human development, but the policies surrounding each of these need to be developed further.
“Policies that have direct impact on what is left in my bank account and savings is actually one of the parameters for which we need to develop further in terms of what new things we can bring on board as well as what technology we can invest in, either based on our savings or investment in one way or the other. If we are unable to create policies that don’t address what is left over after we take care of the developmental social problems, then we wouldn’t have solved the problem.”
