The Executive director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), Mensah Thompson has criticized the government of discriminating against customers who have their funds locked up after banks and other financial institutions were collapsed.
“If you have the money why don’t you pay the customers their hard earned money but rather asking them to discount it by 50% is the most shrewd and cruel way of stealing from the poor customers who have already lost so much due to the time value of money”.
Mensah Thompson
In a statement sighted by the Vaultz News and signed by Mensah Thompson, it rhetorically quipped, “Why is the Government discriminating against customers in the payment of the locked up funds on the basis of the ethnicity of their names?”
According to ASEPA, the government is not being particularly honest with the public, as it proffered its own evidence of malfeasance by the key actors.
“The total number of customers of collapsed Savings and Loans were 2.1Million Customers, Microfinance Customers were about 1.1million according to the records. So the total number of Customers of Savings and Loans and Microfinance Companies sum up to about 3.2 million”.
“Now the receiver in one of his Press briefings told us that he has received claims from ONLY 360,000 customers from both MFI and Savings and Loans. The receiver additionally told us 63,000 of those claims were rejected because they lacked the merit for the claim and that the receiver has through that process saved us some money”.
Mr. Thompson made these allegations on the back of the deputy Minister for Finance assertion of settling 96% of its indebtedness to customers of the collapsed banks, micro finance and savings and loans customers.
He further buttressed his claims by tweets made by Gabby Otchere Darko re-emphasizing “this blatant lie told by the Minister”.
Per the calculations of ASEPA, 297,000 claims were validated according to the receiver and as such “297,000 as a percentage of 3.2Million will give you about 9%”.
“Now the banking sector, posted about 1 Million customers, who were then issued a 5 year non-tradable zero coupon bond. Which means they’ll get their money in 5 years without any interest”
“So technically this is a deferred payment by Government, which means Customers of the collapsed banks would receive their money only in 2025 and that cannot count as payment”.
Mr. Thompson considered it sheer bestiality, government’s directive that all the customers who cannot wait till 2025 for their money should take their Non tradable Zero Coupon bond to CBG and discount it by 50% and take their money.
“Prior to the Collapse of MFI and Savings and Loans, Government told us it needed about GHC6billion to settle the 3.2Million customers who would be affected. During the Mid-year budget review in 2019 the finance minister reiterated this call and even requested for additional funds to settle customers”.
The group believes that the GH5.4 billion expended on claims have not been adequately substantiated if indeed 297,000 claims have been paid with a mixture of cash and bonds, indicating that some people are benefiting from the plight of these customers.
“If GHC6billion was budgeted to settle 3.2 million customers based on the books of the MFI and Saving and Loans Companies, how come the receiver after validating ONLY 297,000 claims out the 3.2Million Customers is telling us he has spent GHC5.4billion to pay the customers?”
