Locked Up Deposits: Modalities For Payment To Be Announced Soon – Oppong Nkrumah

The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has announced that government will soon announce the modalities for payment of locked-up funds of customers of the collapsed microfinance and Savings & Loans companies.

“We will soon have a statement from the Ministry of Finance perhaps in the next 24 hours providing some more clarity on the timelines,” he told Citi News.

President Akufo-Addo while delivering the 2020 State of the Nation Address on Thursday said GH¢5 billion has been made available by the government to pay the customers of the defunct Savings & Loans and Microfinance companies.

The President said payment will commence from Monday, February 24, 2020, noting that his government is committed to ensuring that full payments are made to all customers of the collapsed financial institutions.

But some affected customers in Citi News interviews expressed doubt over the pledge indicating that a similar promise was made to them by the President last year and they are yet to see it fulfilled.

Leader for the Coalition of Affected Savings and Loans Customers, Kofi Sarpong said although they laud the President for the bold decision, they will only be convinced if they start seeing their accounts credited with their monies.

“First and foremost, we want to thank the President for his bold decision. It's a bold decision he has taken but I want to say that we are not satisfied and we even believe that the president is deceiving us. The honest truth is that on 24th December 2019, the President said that he was going to pay us 100% for which we all applauded him for that and secondly, the Vice President also echoed that and the Finance Minister also said we are going to be paid in full.”

“This means that almost all the top hierarchy in terms of finance had given us the assurance and from then till now, it's almost two months and we have not seen any plan by the Bank of Ghana, the Ministry of Finance or the Receiver. So we want to plead with the President that if he wants to really pay us this time, we want to see evidence,” Kofi Sarpong stated.

---citinewsroom