CHY Mall saga: EOCO’s lukewarm enforcement ‘no surprise’ – Amanda Clinton

The Economic and Organised Crime Office, EOCO’s lukewarm approach to cracking down on ponzi schemes is not surprising but remains worrying for a body mandated to stop economic crimes.

This is the position by lawyer Amanda Akuokor Clinton who granted GhanaWeb an exclusive interview on a range of issues around why and how ponzi schemes flourish in Ghana.

EOCO announced on February 2 that its investigations over months had showed that CHY Century Heng Yue Group Limited/Sairui E-Commerce Ghana Limited was operating a Ponzi/Pyramid scheme. The commission cautioned the general public to desist from dealing with them.

But Ms. Clinton told GhanaWeb: “It’s no surprise that EOCO is yet again taking too long to alert the general public and to work with other departments to shut down yet another ponzi scheme since the approach of government is warnings only”.

She referred to the international best practice where governments proactively move in to halt criminal economic activities and by so doing save the populace from financial losses. “For economic and organized crimes globally; the phenomenon is treated as a crime.

“One where government institutions automatically freeze the business operation when a credible suspicion is raised and they collectively work together to shut it down and retrieve all assets gained from the scheme and distribute it amongst the victims, should the suspicion turn into more evidence,” she added.

Ms. Clinton bemoaned the generally slow approach of law enforcement and other regulatory bodies in dealing with such schemes. She referred to an admission by the Security and Exchange Commission’s head of research, who said Ghana over the years has yet to convict anyone for running a pyramid scheme.

“Government departments globally jail criminals and take away proceeds from crime at the earliest possible opportunity so that more assets can be retrieved and the perpetrators wished they never got involved in ponzi schemes since they end up worse off financially and are put in jail.

“Not in Africa however where the poor are often exploited in such schemes and the perpetrators are allowed to financially profit even after the company is shut down, and face no jail time because they are shielded by the government,” she emphasized.

As part of her advocacy in seeking to retrieve depositor funds in the infamous Menzgold saga, Ms. Clinton has recently petitioned the Speaker of Parliament tasking the legislature to do more in the area of legislation to secure investments of the citizenry.

Ms. Clinton has made some effort in the last two years against the suppression of millions of marginalized financial investors and victims of ponzi schemes in Ghana and throughout Africa. She is a partner with Clinton Consultancy, a private legal firm in Accra.

Clinton Consultancy’s petition to parliament: