The Receiver of collapsed Savings and Loans and Micro Credit institutions will by the end of May complete validation process and payment of remaining customers of the defunct institutions.
Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who announced this, said, GH¢340 million would be paid in bonds and cash to depositors after conclusion of the payment process and the final second validation.
Addressing a press briefing in Accra yesterday, he stated that depositors numbering 7,000 which make up two per cent of validated claims, were expected to be paid.
Already,
GH¢5.06 billion legitimate claims have so far been paid after the first phase
of the validation process to 290,000 depositors
Of
the amount, GH¢2.11 billion, he said, has been paid in cash to depositors while
GH¢2.95 billion has also been paid in zero-rated coupon bonds termed debt instruments.
“Now,
based on total cash payments to be made by the end of the depositor payment
exercise, it is expected that a population of individual depositors numbering
about 297,000 whose claims have been validated and accepted in the resolution
of the aforementioned groups of companies and ultimately not less than 290,000,
that is about 98 per cent in a number of individual payments will be fully paid
in cash.
The remaining two per cent of individual depositor claims will be paid by a combination of cash and bonds. So here are the next steps of payments. They are first of all concluding the depositor payments process and the key next step to be undertaken include the conclusion of the final second validation of that GH¢340 million and payments made accordingly. They expect that by the end of May we would be done with that one,” he added.
The Minister noted, however, that some of the organisations whose books and records have challenges were being processed for further investigations.
“There
are some organisations whose books and records still have challenges and they
are processing those for some investigations. And finally, they will issue a
report to the Bank of Ghana on the depositor payment,” he added.
It will be
recalled that the Bank of Ghana (BOG), last year, revoked the licences of 347
microfinance companies and 23 savings and loans companiesas part of efforts
aimed at cleaning the financial sector.
The
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also revoked the operating licences of
some 53 other investment companies.
According to SEC, the revocation of the licences
is to protect the integrity of the securities market and investors.
According to the SEC, “these actions were taken
pursuant to Section 122 (2)(b) of the Securities Industry Act, 2016 (Act 929 or
“the Act”) which authorities the Securities and Exchange Commission to revoke
the licence of a market operator under some circumstances.
Following the revocation of the licences, the SECcommenced the validation process for the affected customers of closed down fund management companies for refund to depositors.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
