Anxious Menzgold customers mass up for their monies

• Posted on September 28, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

Hundreds of customers of minerals trading company, Menzgold, have massed up at various branches of the company to receive their matured investments as promised by management.

Some of the customers had begun queuing as early as 5:00am on Friday at some branches in Accra.

A notice has also been published for the schedule of payments.

For today, Friday, customers whose investments have matured from the 5th to 9th of August, will receive their monies.

The payment is expected to begin after 1:00 pm.

Management of Menzgold announced on Thursday that customers could visit branches of the company to demand their matured investment from today.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Corporate Affairs Manager of Menzgold, Nana Yaw Ofei, explained that the company will pay all its customers that were trading with them until September 12, when a directive from the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, interrupted their operations.

This means those who invested with them after September 12, 2018, “will not get any form of returns”.

“… We’ve set out a payment schedule starting tomorrow [Friday] to be circulated to all our customers. Customers are encouraged to only visit their branch on the date for their collection as the schedule will be strictly adhered to, to avoid crowding at the branches.”

“It is pertinent to note however that the period starting Wednesday 12th September to date while the Gold Vault Market has remained forcefully shut by the SEC regrettably shall not attract any forms of returns whatsoever, as the business of the gold trade has been and still is dormant,” he said.

Mengold sues BoG, SEC

This latest development which will come as a relief to their customers, follows Menzgold’s suit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bank of Ghana.

The company in its suit is seeking from the court an order directing the two institutions to stop interfering in its business.

Menzgold among others asked the court to stop the Bank of Ghana and the SEC from publishing what it described as “derogatory notices” against its business.

“An order of perpetual injunction to restrain the Bank of Ghana and Securities and Exchange Commission, its officers, servants and agents from interfering with Menzgold’s business activities or further acts of disobedience and non-compliance with law by publishing any derogatory notices.”

Background

Menzgold was asked to suspend its gold trading operations with the public by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the SEC, Menzgold has been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectibles from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns with clients, without a valid license from the Commission.

This, the SEC said this was in contravention of “section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under section 2016 (I) of the same Act.”

The company was however cleared to continue its “other businesses of assaying, purchasing gold from small-scale miners and export of gold.”

Despite initial protests, Menzgold complied with the directive.

Delay in payments

Menzgold was initially unable to pay its customers matured investments on their gold deposits due to the action taken against it by the SEC.

“The gold collectibles offered for trade by patrons of our gold vault market product are subject to our quality controls and traded for profit which is shared as extra value with the product owner or trader. Any act, order or instruction, therefore, designed or decreed to forbid Menzgold from trading makes it impossible to generate any revenue whatsoever out of which extra values are charged and paid to those entitled,” Menzgold said in a statement.

But the SEC did not agree with Menzgold’s position, saying the action did not stop them from paying customers dividends on already existing investments.

Failure to communicate

The SEC said it did not receive adequate information from Menzgold after it ordered the suspension of its gold trading business.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, Paul Ababio, Deputy Director-General at SEC, said that the flow of information from the gold dealership firm to enable the two parties reach a favourable consensus has not been smooth.

“We may have finished with our investigation but actual implementation of the results of that investigation is also subject to their willingness to cooperate because we requested for information in August; we have sat with their lawyers with a few back and forth, and we still haven’t received information from them. So if we have the information, one might say within a matter of weeks we should have some closure; then the question now becomes the action items arriving from that determination,” he added.

Source: CNR