Members of the Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of Menzgold are set to embark on a demonstration exercise today, Monday, September 12, 2022, to the Jubilee House over their locked-up monies.
As today marks exactly four years since the gold dealership firm, Menzgold was collapsed by the government; customers say efforts made towards the retrieval of their monies have been unsuccessful.
Spokesperson of the group, Fred Forson spoke to Citi News on modalities for the presentation of a petition to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“We will converge at 9am at the Customs traffic light. From there, we will do a walk through the Ministries to the Black Stars Square. There, we shall have a press briefing. At 11am, we will present our petition. It is exactly four years since Menzgold was collapsed and for four years, we have done whatever we could but it appears there are no results. So this time around, we want to petition the president for a presidential intervention.”
Menzgold was asked to suspend its gold trading operations with the public by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018.
According to the SEC, Menzgold had been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectibles from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns with clients, without a valid license from the Commission.
The SEC said this was in contravention of “section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under section 2016 (I) of the same Act.”
Menzgold customers have in the past bemoaned the lack of commitment on the part of the government to have their monies paid to them.
They are also unhappy about the delay in the prosecution of Menzgold’s CEO, Nana Appiah Mensah.
We won’t pay Menzgold customers’ locked up cash – Finance Minister
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori–Atta, had earlier stated that government will not pay customers of Menzgold.
He said such people invested their monies in Menzgold at their own peril.
Mr. Ofori-Atta said the customers of Menzgold were driven by greed, since the returns on investment promised by the company were unrealistic.
“As we try to clean up the financial services centre, I know the SEC has come down hard, strong, and justifiably on Menzgold. But the issue with a company of Menzgold…it’s become an issue of greed as a people and our own behaviour when we are so clear as educated as we might be that when we went there, there was no license.”
“I think it is not in the place of government to fund or get your money back for you. It was an obvious trap that you went into. Maybe we as an industry should also push the whole issue of education and empowerment so that people do not fall prey to that,” he added.
