The Receiver of the defunct 347 Micro Finance Companies, 23 Savings and Loans and Finance Houses, Eric Nana Nipah, says former employees who have not received their outstanding salaries and negotiated exit packages, should be able to access them by the end of July 2020.
This comes after the Bank of Ghana agreed to pre-finance the full outstanding salaries and negotiated exit packages for the former employees.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, he said negotiations are far advanced with the various union representatives as they are currently working on modalities for payment.
“Another thing I need to mention relates to negotiations. From the beginning, when I was appointed, I engaged a consultant, Mr. Austin Gamey to help with the process. The employees also appointed representatives including UNICOV, ICU of TUC. Some were lawyers and others were former employees who were delegated by their colleagues to engage on their behalf. We went through almost a year of negotiations and I am happy to report that we have concluded negotiations and we are clear on the formula for payment of exit packages and we are in the process of paying. I will say that, by the end of this month [July] we will start paying employee-related claims,” he said.
Meanwhile, all affected depositors with valid claims of the defunct companies will also receive their locked up investments by the end of July 2020.
The Bank of Ghana, between 2017 and 2019, revoked the licenses of nine local commercial banks and over four hundred financial institutions comprising Micro-finance, Savings and Loans as well Finance Houses, for violating various regulations guiding their operations.
This affected about 4.6 million depositors whose monies could have been lost completely had the regulators not taken the action.
It all began in August 2017, when the Bank of Ghana (BoG) gave GCB Bank Ltd the green light to acquire two local banks UT and Capital bank due to severe impairment of their capital.
Later in August 2018, the Bank of Ghana consolidated five other local banks into the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
Then in May 2019, 347 microfinance companies also had their licenses revoked by the Bank of Ghana.
The Bank of Ghana later in August 2019 again revoked the licences of twenty-three (23) insolvent savings and loans companies and finance houses, whiles the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the licenses of over 50 Fund Management Companies.