The Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Reverend Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, has revealed that contemplations are being made on acquiring a mutual fund to make use of a capital market instrument in overseeing payment of locked up funds.
“What we are currently considering is to use a Special Purpose Vehicle; a mutual fund that will have the liquid component and the investment component. The liquid component means that you can actually take it as cash. If you know mutual funds, you will know that one of the attractiveness of mutual funds is the ability to provide liquidity. We are using that vehicle; a capital market vehicle for that. But more details will be available to the investors during the class meetings. She (Jemimah Oware) explained that, she will have creditor meetings, but then when she gets to the class meetings; that’s with the investors, then she will get into the structure of the vehicle.”
Rev. Tetteh noted that, SEC has a conduct of business guidelines that addresses issues relating to the operation of businesses.
In an interview on Pm Express, he stated that, most issues related to the revocation of businesses and Fund Management is due to non-professional and ineffective board of directors.
“We have come out with conduct of business guidelines that addresses some of these issues in terms of how the operators are expected to operate. We can also talk about governance issues; It was clear that, some of these firms their boards were not effective, both from composition of the boards to even operationalization of the board. Boards are effective when they have sub-committees; you will find that they were missing.
“In our space, Fund Managements are supposed to team up with investment committees to access the investment proposals made by the Fund Management. Then, there is an issue of financial literacy or the lack of financial literacy, because people didn’t understand what investment is.”
However, Rev. Tetteh disclosed that, the Securities and Exchange Commission is deliberating on making the Licensing framework robust. “It is the license that will permit anyone to come and operate in the industry in the first place. We have tightened the licensing requirement; we will actually be issuing new licensing guidelines which will raise the bar.” He said.
In his closing remarks, he stated that SEC has launched a digitization program to make it easy and quicker for the market operators to submit information to the commission and also make analytics of the information quickly responsive.
Also, clients of defunct Fund Management, have been assured by Jemimah Oware of the Registrar General’s Department, that there will be a flawless payment of locked up funds. “It is going to be seamless; I promise you.”
She intimated that, due to the COVID -19 pandemic, meetings with the clients of the defunct Fund Management will be held virtually, which she states will be unprecedented.
“The class meeting will break down the information further as to how they can access their monies. Definitely, we are going to set up a website; we are putting a lot of stuff virtually. We are going to be linking it through our various website; I have a whole procedure put out there.”
On the Pm Express, Ms. Oware stated that clients of the defunct Fund Management have “to submit their claim electronically and sign off”, to validate payment of locked up funds.
