Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has indicated that customers of defunct microfinance companies and savings and loans firms will begin receiving their locked up funds starting June 2020.
He said the receiver for the defunct companies is set to complete the second level of validation by end of May to allow for the payment of funds to the affected customers.
The Bank of Ghana revoked the licenses of 347 microfinance companies and 23 savings and loans companies to clean the country’s financial sectors leaving thousands of customers with their funds locked up.
Following the revocation of the licences last year, President Nana Akufo-Addo assured depositors that they will have their monies paid back to them.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah, speaking at a press briefing in Accra on May 7, said “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% in number of individual payments, will be fully paid in cash,” he said.
He further stated that the remaining 2% 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 340 million, and payments made accordingly. They expect that by the end of May we would be done with that one,” he added.
He further noted that there are some organizations whose books and records still have challenges, and so there are processing rules for some further investigations.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri