Customers of Gold Coast Fund call for investigations

A group of Concerned Customers of the Gold Coast Fund Management (GCFM) have appealed to government to constitute an independent body to investigate the officials of the GCFM for not paying their monies to them.

They also called for the investigation of the officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for not communicating to customers and the public about their actions being taken against GCFM to safeguard their investment.

At a news conference addressed by Madam Faustina Otoo in Accra they said since September 2018, the GCFM led by the then Chief Executive Officer, Papa Kwesi Nduom, made a number of unfulfilled promises to the customers.

“Firstly, the GCFM officials indicated to start payment to their customers by March 2019 and to date, not a single customer has received a pesewa. Secondly, they indicated to develop a payment plan concerning each customer’s investment; to date, no such plan has been developed and communicated to their customers.

“Thirdly, we often read from the media about Papa Kwesi Nduom giving assurances and promises on payments being made by GCFM to their customers. We want to state emphatically and place on record that no such payments have been made to their customers,” Madam Otoo said.

She said: “Those pronouncements from Papa Kwesi Nduom were meant to divert attention from their gigantic failure to fulfil their part of the contract with their customers.”

Madam Otoo said the SEC was too silent on issues surrounding the GCFM and until now, it had not issued a road map to resolve the matter as a regulator.

“Our members have individually petitioned the SEC on various infractions committed by GCFM, and the SEC’s responses have always been that they will investigate the matter and get back to the petitioner. That ends everything! Nothing comes from SEC again,” she said.

Madam Otoo said it was surprising that while the Bank of Ghana boldly accepted responsibilities and took the bull by the horn by implementing drastic measures to sanitise the banking sector, the same could not be said about the SEC.

“The Bank of Ghana has already appointed receivers who are mandated to pay customers’ lock-up funds with the various defunct banks. What is SEC doing?”

She said Ghanaians were encouraged to inculcate savings and investment culture, while people were taught to plan towards their pension and therefore it was upon this advice that “our members acted and judiciously lodged various sums of money with a regulated institution trusting the government would come to our aid in the event of eventualities.”

“Pensioners and retrenched workers including; former workers of AngloGold Ashanti have various sums of money with the GCFM. What lesson is it to the general public and posterity if the government fails to take necessary action to safeguard our investment with GCFM?”