Nana Appiah Mensah
The woes of embattled gold collectibles dealership firm, Menzgold Ghana Limited, appear to be far from over, as customers of the company have reportedly rejected a proposed 15 percent initial payment on their principal.
Board of the embattled Menzgold proposed the 15 percent payment during a meeting with customers and other key stakeholders of the company over the weekend at Zylofon Cash Office to address some pertinent issues.
About nine interest groups and investors of Menzgold, DAILY GUIDE understands, attended the said meeting, which started around 4:15pm and ended at about 6:35pm.
The meeting was said to have been chaired by Nana Offei, Corporate Affairs Manager, with support from Shadrack Fordjour, Marketing Manager, Administration and Clive Ofosuhene, IT Manager.
“In deep consultations with the Board, operations and management, the company has decided to give 15% initial payment to all customers who wish to terminate their contract,” Mr. Offei was quoted as saying.
The paper gathered that the proposed 15 percent was to be paid by 9th November, 2018.
That schedule was when a one-month agreement between Menzgold and its clients would have been due.
However, the 15 percent proposed payment was said to have been flatly rejected by about 80 percent of the customers, who were apparently peeved with the way in which management of the company was handling their investments.
Accordingly, leaders of the various stakeholder groups had reportedly attempted to negotiate for 20 percent to 25 percent payment but that also was not successful.
It is unclear whether the 20 percent or 25 percent did not go down well with management of Menzgold or some stakeholders.
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Meanwhile, as the customers appear desperate to retrieve their monies from the company, Mr. Offei is rather encouraging them to continue doing business with the collectibles firm by migrating onto its online platform, which is scheduled to be launched on 5th November.
It would be recalled that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in September 2018 ordered Menzgold Ghana Limited to suspend its gold trading operations with the public.
The directive, according to SEC, was based on the ‘fact’ that 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 licence from the Commission.
The move, SEC explained, was in contravention of “Section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under Section 2016 (I) of the same Act.”
The company was, however, allowed to continue “its other business of assaying and purchasing gold from small-scale miners and export of gold.”