The Registrar General, Jemima Oware has stated that most of the defunct Fund Management were not following through with the directives and regulations of the Registrar General’s Department.
In an interview on Pm express, she intimated that, a sector of the defunct Fund Management declined petitions given by the Court.
“Many of them didn’t even accept the petition. You need to also realize that because they were not doing well in my books; they were not in good standing. They had even changed some of their Directors without updating me; some had even closed down the office and had not updated me in my register. When I keep on saying file your annual returns, update me; this is what I mean. Inform me when directors and shareholders change. That was not being done by most of these fund management companies.
“When we petitioned the court and some tried to serve them with a petition, some came back to say that they were no more directors of these companies. Some had their mobile numbers off and others their offices were closed. And so, we had to do substituted service to put this petition in the papers, before some of them responded to it. And it really took a long turn. I didn’t have any other option to go through the route I went through.”
Also, The Director-General of the Security and Exchange Commission, Reverend Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, revealed that some defunct Fund Management could not honor salary payment for their employees.
He noted that, fair proceedings were meted out to all defunct Fund Management before revoking their licenses.
“Out of the 50 firms that we revoked their license, 21 of them had actually ceased operations. It will interest you to know that after we took the revocation decision, we even had some of the employees of some of these firms who were in operation, have come to say that some for six months, 12 months; some for 18 months have not even been paid. Clearly, those firms were in distress.”
“Quite apart from that, when on our on-site inspections looking up issues, we will write to you and give you some time to address your issues and then we will come back to verify whether you have addressed those issues. Apart from that, when we say complaint, especially where clients are not getting their monies back, we organize hearings; we bring the complaint and then they bring the companies to hear them. We as moderators, get the company to agree to a payment plan for the afflicted clients. Many of these companies failed to go by the payment plan agreed with the customers under our supervision.”
However, Rev Tetteh stated that, 3 of the 8 financial institutions who sought redress through the administrative hearing committee of SEC were successful.
He has lauded the Government for its intervention to provide a bail out based on the validated claims of the clients of the affected defunct Fund Management.
Meanwhile, concerned citizens are of the view that, from the Bank of Ghana experience, the liquidation process might take a while to bail the affected investors out.
