Police arrests aggrieved customers of collapsed fund managers over demo

Three members of the Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of the collapsed 53 Fund Management Companies who were protesting at the premises of the Finance Ministry have been arrested.

The arrestees are customers of the Blackshield Capital Limited which was excluded from the government’s proposed bailout packages for depositors of the defunct fund management companies.

The Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Accra Regional Police Command, DSP Efia Tenge, told citinews that the people were arrested for staging an unlawful protest.

“This morning [September 1, 2020] we heard a group of aggrieved people have besieged the premises of the Ministry of Finance and we saw that they had blocked the entrance of the Ministry preventing access and therefore it behoves on the police to come and ensure that they are dispersed and that is what we have done.”

She also raised concerns on the need for the general public to follow the required procedures for staging a protest.

“We keep on saying that if you want to embark on any form of protest or any form of demonstration, go through what the law requires for all of us under the Public Order Act 1994, Act 491. So if you do not go through this basic requirement then it means that the police will have no other option than to come and disperse the crowd and that is what the police have done.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced in a statement that customers of Blackshield and three other firms will not be part of the bailout package because owners of such companies had challenged the revocation of their licenses in court.