Don’t prosecute NAM1, leave him to pay us – MenzGold customers

Some aggrieved customers of MenzGold Ghana Limited say they are not interested in the prosecution of the embattled chief executive of the defunct gold dealership firm, Nana Appiah Mensah (NAM1) who is now facing criminal prosecution.

NAM1 was arraigned Friday on two counts of abetment to defraud by false pretence, and two counts of abetment to carry out banking business without license.

The man popularly referred to as NAM,1 touched down in Accra last Thursday from Dubai where he was acquitted and discharged on misdemeanor charges, but was immediately whisked to the Police CID headquarters for interrogation breaches of the laws of Ghana

Customers of the collapsed MenzGold who have for the past 10 months being pushing to get their locked up investments paid to them welcomed the arrival of Appiah Mensah in the country, particularly especially due to the news a Dubai-based company has been ordered to pay him some 39 million dollars.

Though the customers are hopeful NAM1 will facilitate the payment of their monies, some are skeptical the legal proceedings commenced against him by the State will slow down the repayment process.

Speaking on The Key Points show on TV3 Saturday, leader of the aggrieved customers Mahamud Salifu said it has never been the demand of the customers to have NAM1 prosecuted, and that they want the man set free to pay them back their monies.

“…That has never been the demand of customers, and you will hear the government or the CID saying that customers have complained and it is the reason why the man is being prosecuted. No, no customer has complained to the CID that we want this man prosecuted or he has defrauded us,” he pointed.

He explained that has never been the case for them as custimers, but rather “all we’ve been looking for is how to get to retrieve our monies.”

According to Mr. Salifu, prosecuting NAM1 will only slow the repayment process, and that will not benefit the customers.

“His prosecution will not benefit the dying customers of MenzGold in any way; all we are looking for is the state facilitation towards recovery of our funds and nothing else,” he indicated.

He accused the government and the security services for not acting quickly at the onset, stating they had a lot of time on their hands to have dealt with the issue at the initial stage but they failed to do so, allowing the MenzGold CEO to leave the country.

“Even before the shutdown of the company, the state institutions should have tracked all his assets and bank accounts to ensure that they were in safe custody of the state, so that if anything went wrong, it would be used to settle the customers, but state institutions failed in that direction.

“You won’t believe that someone who has taken over 40, 000 people’s deposit is allowed a free passage outside this country so let’s now deal with him this way so that people will feel that we are acting,” Mr. Salifu said.

He claimed several attempts by the customers to have the state intervene and retrieve their monies failed, and that the state is only now acting since the issue escalated and dominated the media.

“We first petitioned the Bank of Ghana, SEC and the presidency, the highest office of the land for their intervention so that we could get these monies retried, none of them responded to our petition,” Salifu noted.

He said what the customers are interested in and want is for the security agencies to put measures in place to have their monies paid them, since that is what is of major concern to them.