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Why Vociferously Blaming Only the Government but not Victims in the Menzgold Saga?

Feature Article Why Vociferously Blaming Only the Government but not Victims in the Menzgold Saga?
JAN 24, 2019 LISTEN

Does it not take two to tango? Yes, it does. Why then are those people lacking realism but just being petty for selfish reasons and undisclosed agenda turbulently accusing the NPP government of their loss of invested money with the Ponzi scheme, Menzgold? Much as I do sympathise with the victims, I hate the attitudes by those seeking to use it to threaten the government to pay them or else, they will not vote to re-elect it into power in 2020.

Is it not said, “It is not gold all that glitters”? The proprietor or the Board of Directors of Menzgold conscious of their hidden agenda, offered their customers unbelievably higher percentage returns of interest on their money deposited or invested with them. Their ultimate aim or objective was to abscond with their money in the end as we have seen happen.

When at all will Ghanaians be wiser to learn bitter lessons from their past experiences? Many years ago, some Nigerians came to open banks in Ghana. They offered similar higher interest rates to their customers. After they had had several customers with higher deposit, they folded the banks and did the runner. With the numerous micro-finance organisations spring up throughout the country like mushrooms, some of them duped their customers and disappeared into the thin air.

Until when will Ghanaians learn that when a new bank starts offering interest rates on deposits twice, thrice or many times higher than those of the traditional banks, an eyebrow has to be raised? This is not the first or the second time some banks and micro-finance institutions have duped Ghanaians yet, they continue to fall victims to their tricks. Reading the attitudes of Ghanaians, it will surely not be the last time that a dubious bank will cheat Ghanaian bank customers.

Is it because we are too greedy to get quick buck? If so, let it be known to us that quick buck goes as quick as it comes hence what some dubious banks including Menzgold had done to many Ghanaians.

As I blame them for their inattention, vulnerability and lack of learning from their previous or others’ bitter experiences with similar Ponzi banks, the government of Ghana must not be spared a taint of the same brush. From the NDC to NPP, Menzgold had been operating, diversifying and ramifying like a wild harmattan fire. Knowing that the bank had not any licence or a genuine licence to operate, why was it left to operate in the capacity that it was doing?

I do not feel persuaded with the Bank of Ghana’s explanation that they kept warning the public a number of times against patronising Menzgold. When they detected that its operations were dubious, why did they not step in there and then to stop it? Could it be that Bank of Ghana will have been accused of killing the banks belonging to the supporters of NDC as was heard to be said when some banks were collapsed and consolidated into one and taken over by the government? I think in either way, the government or the Bank of Ghana would have been accused of one thing or the other same as I am accusing it of failing to act when it was needed and timely.

If Menzgold was not licenced or regulated by Bank of Ghana and therefore allowed it to continue to operate when they became suspicious of its activities, why then that it finally stepped in and it is now pursuing its owner, NAM1?

Ghana is stagnating, if not retrogressing, socio-economically, all because of the collective absurd attitude of “Ghana dee saa” nonchalance that allows few criminal politicians and civil servants to dupe the nation and the people with impunity. Because of our stupidity and propensity to politicise every issue at the word go, with the threat of, “we go show Nana in 2020” or we shall not vote this or that party come general elections, we weaken the government, if not disabled it, from taking decisive actions in the best interests of the majority of the populace.

Recounting my own experience to justify why the government is right not to pay a pesewa to the depositors of Menzegold, read the following. I invested in Bitcoin when a work colleague discussed with me how his friend had within two years become a millionaire through investing in Bitcoin. Little did I know that I was going to fetch rainwater after it has stopped raining but just rounding off with intermittent droplets from the sky. As I speak, my money so invested is going, if not already gone, into smoke. When I was going to do it, my wife warned me against it but I brushed her off.

Again, I recently nearly invested in another Ponzi scheme. It was about Sweden supposedly going to officially trade its coins in cryptocurrency. I thought if it were so, then it would be lucrative for those to first go in as it is the early bird that catches the worm in all these Ponzi schemes. However, my twenty-year old younger son asked, “Dad, how did you get to know about it?” When I told him, he said hold on, let me do some search. After doing further search on the internet and contacting some friends of his who do invest in various trades, it turned out that the scheme I was about to invest in was fake. Had it not been my son, I may have lost some money although I was hesitant myself investing in the new scheme.

Who should I go asking to pay me if such investments had gone into smoke? I have to blame myself and shoulder the responsibility all alone. Similarly, those who invested in Menzgold must lick their fingers or wounds all alone without seeking any refund from the government. The government did not encourage them to invest with Menzgold. The fact that His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had a photo taken with the owner of Menzgold was not an endorsement of the bank’s credibility as it is contrarily the view of his opponents of whom Sammy Gyamfi stands out conspicuously.

Where the government can be held a bit culpable is its dithering to stopping NAM; failure to seize his assets and freeze his bank accounts but inadvertently allowed him enough time to freely do whatever he wanted with his money and assets.

SUGGESTIONS:
Laws in Ghana must be seen to work and enforced by the government. The governments are weak to superintending the laws. Those breaking the laws must be punished without any ifs or buts. There must not be any further politicisation of issues of national interest. With the Menzgold, one could hear the NDC promising to pay the depositors their money if they were in power. I don’t blame them because they are clueless and are thieves who thought all the money in Ghana belongs to them hence embezzling and sharing it among their cronies and some party members when they were in power. Stop trying to score cheap political points for all stupid reasons but to place the nation first before your political parties.

Learn lessons from this so as to avoid becoming a victim once more in future. Should you be among the first few to invest in any such enterprise, do remove at least your principal money so invested as soon as you begin to get huge interests or dividends to put it into the traditional banks that have established credibility over years. In so doing, you will not lose all that you have in case the Ponzi bank goes bust as it is in the case of Menzgold. For it is said, “Do not put all your eggs in one basket”

In Europe or America, one person can have about five to ten bank accounts from different banks. They distribute their money into various accounts. Therefore, if one bank goes bankrupt, they still have money in other banks without losing all their money.

In the United Kingdom, read this, “It covers money in current accounts, savings accounts, and cash ISAs. Under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), up to £85,000 per person, per institution is now protected if a bank, building society or credit union goes bust”. This means if you have millions of pounds in the same one bank and it goes bust, you will only get £85,000 compensation. Subsequently, it is prudent to spread your money across many banks all of the time.

Rockson Adofo

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