2021 Budget: SEC to get GH¢5.5bn to complete asset mgt bailout?

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will require a total of GH¢5.5 billion in order to complete the bailout of investors of asset management companies whose licenses were revoked.

“For this reason, we have come to this House once again to seek for your approval to raise an amount of GH¢5.5 billion in 2021 to complete the asset management industry bailout,” petitioned the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu on Friday, March 12.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu was reading the 2021 budget statement and economic policy of government in the absence of a substantive Minister of Finance, noting that the resolution of the banking sector, which began in 2017, has been completed.

Nonetheless, government is working to complete the bailout packages for investors in the asset management industry, he pointed out.

He recalled that Parliament approved GH¢3.1 billion out of an estimated GH¢8.5 billion in the 2020 mid-year budget to bail out validated investors.

He said over 30 asset management companies (AMCs), whose investors had been validated, became beneficiaries of a total of GH¢3.4 billion as at the end of December 2020.

Some were in bonds of varying kinds – a 3-year maximum bond of GH¢2.5 billion and a 5-year zero-coupon bond of GH¢915 million.

As a result, only 17 AMCs remain to be cleared, according to the Suame Member of Parliament.

Among these companies are Gold Coast Fund Management Limited, Blackshield Capital Limited, First BanC Financial Services Limited, Liberty Asset Management, Beige Capital Asset Management Limited, Ideal Capital Limited and Frontline Capital Advisors Limited.