Receiver Takes Over Microfinance Firms

Eric Nana Nipah

Eric Nana Nipah, Receiver for 347 microfinance companies whose licences were revoked on Friday by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), says he has commenced the process of taking control over the affected firms to orderly wind up their operations.

According to him, he would conduct an assessment of the state of affairs of the institutions in order to ascertain the types and value of assets and liabilities as at the commencement of the receivership.

“The Receiver estimates that this assessment will be completed within the next 10 days.

“Whilst the situation assessment is ongoing, all creditors, including depositors, will be requested to submit their completed PoD forms with supporting documentation to the Receiver for validation and agreeing as set out above.

Mr Nipa said that the process of validating and agreeing Creditor claims would take another 30 days from the date of the deadline for the submission of creditor claims.

He, therefore, indicated that “during this period of validation and agreeing claims, depositor claims, which have been validated and accepted in the receivership, will be paid concurrently at designated Consolidated Bank of Ghana Ltd (CBG) branches to the extent possible.”

“Also to determine the indebtedness of affected microfinance companies to their body of creditors, as well as the order of ranking of these creditors for dividend distribution, as appropriate, the Receiver intends to put in place a creditor administration process which would involve submission of proof of debt forms, validating and agreeing claims, payments to depositors and payments to other creditors.

He called on stakeholders, who have been affected by the activity to direct all their concerns to him.

The appointment of Mr Nipah, a director of PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ghana) Limited, was in accordance with Section 123(2) of Act 930.

It’s aimed at recovering and maximising asset realisations for the benefit of creditors in accordance with the relevant provisions of Act 930 and ultimately to settle the indebtedness of the affected institutions to the creditors to the extent possible.

A business desk report