Joe Ghartey
A Fifty-page report by the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Joe Ghartey’s Committee on the Blackshield Capital Limited’s customers’ locked up funds has been submitted to Parliament with several findings and recommendations.
The Committee, in the report, recommended among other things that, “Government should make good on its indications and make payments that will bring relief to the investors. In making payments to the investors whilst the court cases are still pending, the interest of the investors in their respective investments should be assigned to the Government to the extent of the payments made of them.”
This follows the report that over 60,000 customers of Blackshield Capital Limited petitioned Parliament through Mahama Ayariga to investigate and establish what has accounted for the government’s failure to pay their (customers) funds.
The report further noted that “the total number of claims filed against Blackshield as of January 4, 2024, is 89,632, adding that, “As stated in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s press statement dated October 11, 2023, the partial bailout of up to GH¢50,000 paid to customers of Blackshield in 2020 resulted in 61,504 claimants (69%) being fully settled, leaving a total of 26,128 clients yet to be fully settled.”
The Committee also stated that it could not grant the relief that the petitioners were seeking, that is to compel the government to pay the investors because the government had made an allocation in the 2024 budget as well as the mid-year statement made by the Minister of Finance.
The Committee pointed out that there is a difference between allocating an amount in the budget and disbursement of an amount. The Committee took the position that Parliament did not have the power to compel the government to make disbursements from the budget.
It, however, observed that a total of 89,632 claims were submitted against Blackshield, with an estimated value of GH¢5.14 billion.
The former Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Ghartey, presenting the report also recommended the need for all persons undertaking such transactions like Blackshield Capital Limited’s customers to subscribe to insurance schemes.
The Committee noted that the government could not continue to be the ultimate or final guarantor of all financial transactions, and the answer to this burden that kept on being imposed on the government and by extension the taxpayer was insurance.
BY Daniel Bampoe