The government has been accused of intentionally deploying delay antics to avoid the bailout currently demanded by the Locked-Up Investment Holders Forum.
The Locked-Up Investment Holders Forum are customers of some four finance houses and savings and loans companies that have gone insolvent but the Bank of Ghana is yet to revoke their licenses hence locking the funds of these investors.
Per the law, the licenses of insolvent financial institutions must be revoked first by the Bank of Ghana before bailout provisions are made for the affected customers.
The forum says all indications show that the four financial institutions are bankrupt but the authorities have failed to revoke their licenses which will pave the way for them to recoup their investment.
In the forum’s attempt to get authorities to act, the aggrieved customers have observed that it has become a deliberate plan of the government to employ “dark arts” to frustrate the processes.
Convener of the forum, Dr. Adu Anane Antwi in an interview with The High Street Journal noted that some actions and inactions of the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Ghana make them convinced that they are not ready to grant them the bailout they call for.
Justifying the reasons for this allegation, the convener said he could not understand why the Ministry took so long to write to the Bank of Ghana to demand a report on the status of the embattled financial institutions.
He tells The High Street Journal: “I believe the government, the Ministry is just using this to delay so that this matter will be pushed to the next government. I believe that is what the Ministry is doing. We started this agitation in May, and when we sent a letter to them to get the Bank of Ghana to provide you with this information, it took them a long time before they wrote to the Bank of Ghana.”
“And I don’t know what happened. Between them and the Bank of Ghana, it also took another long time before the Bank of Ghana responded. Then after they have responded, it’s taking you more than a month to take a decision. So, we can see that it’s just delaying tactics so that the current administration will not be the ones to resolve the issue. At the end of the day, it will be pushed to the next administration,” he added.
They however say they intend to protest over their locked-up funds regardless of a regime change.
