Aggrieved customers of defunct Gold Coast Fund Management Company, have once again, hit the streets, this time round in larger numbers.
After converging at the Obra spot, the aggrieved customers made their way to the Finance Ministry on Tuesday October 10, pushing strongly for the authorization of the release of some GHC5.5 billion owed them.
The Gold Coast Fund Management Company in November, 2019 had its license revoked by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company was among 53 others who had their licenses revoked for various infractions, including their inability to pay clients their investments.
The revocation, was however followed with a promise by the Director-General of the SEC, Rev. Ogbarmey Tetteh, to start payment of monies to customers when it completes the necessary validation processes.
In effect, an amount of GHC8.6 billion was approved by Parliament as a bailout package for the aggrieved customers. In November 2020, a partial amount of GHC3.1 billion was disbursed, with each customer receiving GHC50,000 each.
But four years down the line, members are still battling with government to receive their remaining monies which amounts to GHC5.5 billion.
They stormed the Finance Ministry on Tuesday October 10, 2023 to drive home their demands.
Convener of the group, Charles Nyame in an interview with TV3 said “all documents available from the Finance Ministry and Parliament, indicate that government has spent GHC26 billion in paying customers who fell victim to the financial clean up.”
“And when you try to digest the component of this GHC26 billion that government claims it has spent, our approved GHC8.6 billion that’s supposed to pay fund management customers in full, has been calculated as part of the GHC26 billion that has been spent. Meanwhile these monies did not reach us. That is why we are here today.”
Other customers, mostly pensioners also shared their experiences during the past four years, and how difficult it has been to survive.
61-year-old Francis Borquaye, an aggrieved customer said “I should have been dead by now, if not for my siblings and children. I went to buy medication for BP yesterday. It used to be GHC56, now, its GHC138. How?”
71-year-old Francis Boadu, another customer said “I have been rendered immobile, I am not able to move anywhere, only God knows how I take care of myself.”
The scene at the Finance Ministry was nothing to write home about. While some sat on the floor weeping, others rained insults on the Finance Minister.
But as they picketed, officials of the Ministry invited the leaders of the group for a meeting. About an hour after, the leaders of the group were seen walking angrily out of the Ministry. According to its convener, they were not attended to.
He said, “they have just seated us at the reception, and no one has attended to us for the past 40 minutes and this is gross disrespect.”
The convener says they will be picketing at the Finance Ministry for the next 48 hours.