We also deserve bailout – Aggrieved Menzgold customers to SEC

Some aggrieved customers of defunct gold dealership company, Menzgold Ghana Limited have reiterated calls on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to bail them out on the basis of the principle of “equal justice.”

They say the government and SEC must take the blame for their plights.

“We, customers of Menzgold blame government and SEC for our plights and the deaths of our members. Government and SEC have contemptuously disregarded the laws of SEC that protect customers of Menzgold and have rather focused on inciting the public to ridicule us by calling us “greedy” instead of protecting us and ensuring our monies are retrieved from Nana Appiah Mensah,” the group said at a press conference held on Sunday, October 11, 2020.

Members of the group say government’s posture towards them has led various stakeholders including the Civil Society Organizations and the Media and Human Rights Activities to avert their minds to the laws of SEC such as Act 929, Section 123 (2a, 2b and 2c) that protect vulnerable investors like them.

“It is based on these SEC laws that we requested SEC to include Customers of Menzgold in its bailout exercise for customers of collapsed licensed institutions under SEC, once SEC admits Menzgold operations was within its jurisdiction, upon which they had the authority to issue a shutdown letter.”

The group said although they have received a letter from SEC saying that customers of Menzgold are not part of the bailout for customers of licensed Asset Management Company, they believe that SEC’s laws for the protection of investors cover them too.

 “We, customers of Menzgold Company see Menzgold company as a company that falls within the category of the unlicensed companies which SEC has fully investigated and on authority admitted that Menzgold was operating within its jurisdiction… It was appropriate SEC wrote to government to come to the aid of customers of collapse licensed companies like CDH, First Banc, All Time Capital, Alpha Capital, Beige Capital and the likes to bail them out. Why leave out equally Ghanaians who are customers of Menzgold who fall under the protection of the same Laws ?.”

The group at the press conference detailed four reasons they said were solid grounds on which they must be considered for a bailout.

WHY MENZGOLD CUSTOMERS DESERVE EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE SEC LAWS AND EQUAL COMPASSION FOR A BAILOUT

1. SEC authoritatively admitted Menzgold company operations fall under its jurisdiction when it wrote to the Chief Executive Officer of Menzgold Ghana Ltd on 7^th September 2018, with the reference: SEC/DDGF/Menzgold/Vol.1/09-18 and in paragraph five, directed Menzgold to shut down immediately the business of trading in gold collectibles with guaranteed returns to its customers and all advertising of the investment business halted with immediate effect. This directive caused an immediate run on the Menzgold business and subsequently its collapse and fold up within the same month leading to customers having their hard earn monies locked up for the past two years. Hence, Menzgold falls under category of the unlicensed describe in the Laws of SEC Act 929
2. In all SEC investigations and directives to ensure adherence to the Securities Industry Act, we customers of Menzgold expected SEC to prioritize the protection of our investment with Menzgold as per the SEC Act 929. Secondly, they were to ensure our monies obtained by Menzgold without license from SEC are fully refunded to all customers.
3. Though SEC have fully admitted in their earlier letters that Menzgold was operating in securities. Unfortunately, till date they have failed to give customers of Menzgold any update on their process and procedure to ensure Menzgold refunds our monies.
4. Now that SEC has bailout the customers of the licensed companies like CDH, First Banc, All Time Capital, Alpha Capital, Beige Capital and the likes which they regulated and collapsed with a written letter directing them to close down because they were operating contrary to the terms of their license, Menzgold customers must also be bailout by SEC with the same amount of compassion since they are unlicensed but satisfactorily admitted to be under the regulation of SEC for which reason SEC equally collapsed it with a written letter directing Menzgold to shut down.

The group said the SEC and the government must urgently capture them in the emergency bailout package to forestall the deaths being recorded among other investors.

“We are therefore asking SEC to make a passionate appeal to government on the basis of equal justice under the SEC laws to reconsider Menzgold customers in an emergency supplementary bailout exercise, that will help forestall the continuous number of deaths and health challenges like strokes that we are recording among our members day in and day out.”