Three members of the Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of the defunct 53 Fund Management Companies were on Tuesday, September 1, arrested for leading a protest at the premises of the Finance Ministry.
Members of the group thronged the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, to protest over the exclusion of clients of Blackshield Capital Limited from the first phase of government’s proposed bailout package for customers of the defunct fund management companies.
In an interview with Citi Business News, the Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, DSP Efia Tenge, explained that the leaders were arrested for staging an unlawful protest.
“We heard a group of aggrieved people have besieged the premises of the Ministry of Finance and we saw that they had blocked the entrance of the Ministry preventing access; and therefore it behooves on the police to come and ensure that they are dispersed and that is what we have done.”
“We keep on saying that if you want to embark on any form of protest or any form of demonstration, go through what the law requires for all of us under the Public Order Act 1994, Act 491, so if you do not go through this basic requirement, then it means that the police would have no other option than to come and disperse the crowd and that is what the police have done.”
The group took the action on the back of claims that some affected customers will not be part of phase one of the government’s bailout package for the sector.
But SEC says clients of Blackshield, formerly Goldcoast Fund Management and the others, will only be captured in the second phase after the liquidation orders are secured.
This has not gone down well with clients of Blackshield who have threatened a demonstration if the decision to exclude them is not reversed.
Reconsider exclusion of Blackshield from bailout package – Aggrieved customers
The Coalition of Aggrieved Customers had earlier called on SEC to rethink the decision to exclude clients of Blackshield Capital Limited from the government’s bailout package.
Addressing the press on Monday, August 31, 2020, spokesperson for the Coalition, Charles Nyame, described the exclusion of Blackshield’s clients as mischievous and a plot to divert the public’s attention from the poor handling of the financial sector clean-up.
“We consider the reasons given by the SEC as misleading and deceptive. The government also issued a bailout to other customers of companies that are also in court to contest their revocation. It is therefore questionable how the government and SEC decided to apply the rules differently. The actions by the government and SEC are mischievous and dishonest, especially when the government is aware that the court is on legal vacation. We hereby call on the government to rethink and include all Blackshield customers in the bailout package since advancing the bailout package does not amount to any interference in the court process,” he noted.
