Some aggrieved customers of defunct Gold Coast Fund Management have threatened to sue government over their locked-up funds.
The company, which operated under the registered name Black shield Capital Limited, had over 55,000 customers whose funds were locked up.
According the group, it has been four years since their investments got locked up with the company, which was regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“The lock-up of our investments was mainly due to the Government’s policy of a Financial Sector Clean-up Exercise in Ghana initiated in 2018,” the Group said in a statement.
They lamented that though affected customers were assured of receiving their funds, none of them have been called to come for their monies.
“This discriminatory act on the part of the government is in contravention of the 1992 Constitution that requires the government to treat all its nationals equally without discrimination.”
The group argued that the decision by government to take over the debt and validating customers claims with an initial payment of ¢50,000 per each investment makes the government liable to the customers on the grounds of absorption of responsibility.
They pointed out that affected depositors would have taken action to retrieve their deposit since 2018 but for the government taking over the responsibility to pay us.
“It had been the case of Group Nduom that government owes them and the evidence available clearly confirms same. There can be a set off in the absence of malice to give relief to us.
“It is, however, unfortunate that we the ordinary citizens are now made to bear the brunt of a government decision for the past four years in such a dastardly manner. You can imagine how we have been surviving for all these years, especially, the pensioners and sick persons among us.”
They stated that pensioners among them who have their investment locked up till date, form more than 70% of their membership and it is incomprehensible that government is shielding its responsibility with a condition of securing an order from the court before it pays these dying pensioners.
“Following the brief background enumerated in the previous paragraphs, we would like to humbly petition the media which is the fourth estate of realm as follows; A parliamentary approved bailout package as we all know is distinct from a liquidation order being sought in the court. Therefore we plead the media to treat our plight with a sense of public interest and recommend to the government to proceed to commit the ¢5.5 billion budget allocation made in the 2021 budget for payment of Fund Management Customers to pay us.”
They stated that the initial forensic audit conducted by the government on the Financial Sector before the introduction of the Financial Clean-up Exercise policy puts the debt in the Financial Sector to ¢ 9,000,000,000.00. Now, a document available from the Finance Ministry shows that amount of money committed to payment of victims of the clean-up to date sums up to Twenty-five Billon Ghana Cedis (¢ 25,000,000,000.00).
“We respectfully plead the media to interrogate and request the Finance Minister to
explain how he arrived at spending an amount of ¢25,000,000,000.00 to settle a debt of ¢9,000,000,000.00 and yet, the Aggrieved Customers Of Gold Coast Fund Management have not received full payment of our investments.”