The Aggrieved Customers of Gold Coast Fund Management wish to express unapologetic thanks to His Excellency the Former President John Dramani Mahama for his goodwill assurance to pay back within a space of one year, all locked-up investments under defunct Fund Management Companies if voted into power come 2024 election, during his acceptance speech in Tamale, on Monday, May 15th, 2023.
We the members of the Aggrieved Customers of Gold Coast Fund Management who constitute over ninety percent (90%) of the entire customers of the forty-seven Fund Management Companies whose licences were revoked by the Securities and Exchange commission welcome the news of this goodwill assurance from the former President, we wish him well on his pursuit to presidency and we cling to this assurance as a light of hope even in times where the Akufo Addo-Bawumia Government who brought us to our knees in this economic mess could be insensitive to our plight for the past five (5) years and not even a formal response to the petition we submitted to Securities and exchange commission during our recent picketing. It should be on records that, the lock-up of our investments was mainly due to Government’s policy of a Financial Sector Clean-up Exercise in Ghana initiated in the year 2018 by the Akufo Addo-Bawumia Government.
We would like to clarify some misleading statements, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is peddling within the media space.
1. The SEC claims, “there is an ongoing Liquidation Case in the court which government seeks to get an order from the court to sell the assets of the company (Blackshield/Gold Coast Fund Management) we placed our Investments with, the money realised from the sales would top up what the government has made available to pay us in full”.
The above assertion by the SEC could not be the truth. After the validation of our investment claims by the PWC, the SEC presented a total validated amount of 8.5 billion Ghana Cedis as investment portfolio due for payment to clients of 47 regulated Fund Management Companies whose licences were revoked under the Financial Sector Clean-up Policy. The government then opted to use a Bailout package to pay back the locked-up investments, in simple terms, the government agreed to use taxpayers money to Bailout the investors and this necessitated the government to allocate 3.1 billion Ghana Cedis and 5.5 billion Ghana Cedis in the midyear 2020 and 2021 year Budget respectively as a Bailout package for Parliamentary approval and for further disbursement to pay each investor in full.
The Parliament duly approved both allocation totalling 8.6 billion Ghana Cedis which is in excess of 100 million Ghana Cedis of the 8.5 billion Ghana Cedis requested by SEC to pay the locked investments in full.
After the approval of the first tranche of 3.1 billion Ghana Cedis, the GCB CAPITAL disbursed the money under the supervision of SEC and Registrar General Department (RGD) without any dire conditionalities.
We are now baffled that after the 5.5 billion Ghana Cedis was approved in the 2021 year Budget to complete our payment, the SEC is now bringing in a pointless conditionality of securing a Liquidation Order from court to sell the assets of the company and use the proceeds to top up the money which government has provided before it pays us. Meanwhile, the government has already provided money that exceeds the 8.5 billion Ghana Cedis SEC claims it requires to pay us in full. Therefore, contrary to the misleading from the SEC, the disbursement of the Parliamentary approved Bailout package has nothing at all to do with the ongoing Liquidation Order Case in court.
(For evidential purposes, attached to this RELEASE is a copy of the 2021-year Financial
Budget which has details of our claim. Kindly consider paragraph 86 and 87 respectively).
2. The SEC asserts that, there are clients of other defunct Fund Management Companies to be paid, in other words, “we are not the only affected clients to make noise”.
We would like to respond by challenging the SEC to publish summation list of the entire clients of the other 46 defunct Fund Management Companies and the sum of their investment portfolio for better argument. It is on records that clients of Gold Coast Fund Management constitute over ninety percent (90%) of customers who have their investment locked-up in SEC regulated institutions, hence; clients of Gold Coast Fund Management have suffered the greater loss and have the right to call for our payment.
3. The SEC claims, the conditionality for our payment, thus, “Securing of Liquidation Order before the disbursement of the remaining Bailout package'” is government’s decision.
We call on the government to rethink through the conditionality and as a matter of urgency rescind on the conditionality for the immediate disbursement of the approved Bailout package to the dying pensioners since over 800 of these pensioners are already dead for the past 5 years due to locked-up Funds.
The Leadership of the Aggrieved Customers of Gold Coast Fund Management would like to use this medium to inform its members to get ready for a week long picketing which may happen spontaneously at the premises of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Registrar General
Department and the Ministry of Finance at the same time. Details of the picketing would be communicated to you on our platforms.
Signed
CHARLES NYAME
(CONVENER FOR THE AGGRIEVED GOLD COAST CUSTOMERS)
Tel: 0247 222 613
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