Story: Atta Kwaku Boadi 

The vice president, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced that the Ministry of Finance is preparing a new bailout package for investors of BlackShield  Capital Limited, formerly  Gold Coast Fund Management  .

Dr. Bawumia, who is the flagbearer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP)  for this year’s  December 7 elections  disclosed this during his tour of the Northern Region, where a group of investors wanted to know why government has not  paid them their locked- up funds.  The Gold Coast Fund investors still cannot fathom why after many promises  made by  the government, it has failed to pay them their locked-up funds.  

Despite their efforts including demonstrations and picketing, they have faced significant challenges in recovering their investments, a situation which  has brought untold hardships on them. 

Acknowledging  the difficulties faced by the investors,  the NPP’s flagbearer noted that, the Ministry of Finance had previously provided a bailout of 50,000 Ghana cedis per investor and was  now preparing another package to alleviate their hardships.

“The Ministry of Finance came out with a bailout, and I think each repository that they gave was about 50 thousand Ghana cedis and I think that the ministry is preparing another bailout for them because we believe that they are going through a lot of hard times”, he said.

Although Dr Bawumia’s announcement offers a glimmer of hope for these investors, they still don’t believe the government will honour its promise. In fact, they think Dr Bawumia  said   this,  because it is an election year,  and  wants votes from the business community. 

In an interview with Today, some customers of Gold Coast expressed misgiving about the promise, saying it was a political talk.

“Why should we  believe  what Dr Bawumia said? All our attempts to let the government  know that we are suffering as a result of their actions have failed”, they stated.

According to the customers, the announcement was even  empty as Dr Bawumia failed to give a date when the new bailout will be rolled out. 

“If really  government is serious  to  pay us our investments,  it should come clear,  and let us know when and how much we are going to receive rather than this announcement”, one customer who gave his name as Edward Aboagye said.  

Indeed, Today Newspaper is not surprised that some customers of  BlackShield  don’t  believe that  government is preparing to   pay them their locked-up  funds. This is because  some statements made in the past by some government appointees  about Gold Coast , Today understands were false . For instance, last year October, on Joy FM’s PM Express programme,  the Registrar General, Mrs. Jemima Oware  was reported to have said that BlackShield customers had not been paid their investments by her office  because the courts had not issued an order for BlackShield to be liquidated.  

This statement, Today’s investigations later found out that, it was false,  and  was meant  to throw dust into the eyes of BlackShield customers and the general public.  

Our further investigations discovered that, the fund  which was used to pay the customers of fund management companies whose licenses were revoked was approved by Parliament.  We have checked Hansard records, and nowhere in the approval of the fund did Parliament state a condition that the companies had to be liquidated before the customers were paid.  If that were the case, why did her office get the authority to pay the BlackShield customers part of their investments from?

Today’s checks with BlackShield  also show  that,  the company  made proposals  to pay customers’ investments over a three year period but  were rejected by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before  its  licence was revoked.  BlackShield also, according  to our further checks  appealed the revocation of its license but the hearing was truncated by SEC.  

The Shareholders of BlackShield have stated on record that government agencies owe them close to 5 billion Ghana cedis including interest.  When BlackShield asked SEC to assist in retrieving funds, the SEC Deputy Director General Paul Ababio famously told the whole world on a Joy FM programme that SEC “…is not a debt collector”.  

Readers will recall that a special committee which was formed by Parliament last year  to investigate the non-payment of money to customers of BlackShield , despite budgetary allocations, commenced  its work on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.   

This  action followed  a petition submitted to the House by some customers of the BlackShield , which was presented by Bawku Central Member of Parliament (MP) Mahama Ayariga on December 6, 2023.

In their petition, the customers requested an inquiry to determine the reasons behind the government’s failure to disburse their locked-up funds. 

During the presentation of the petition, the lawmaker expressed concern about the detrimental impact of the delay on the affected customers and urged the House to promptly address the issue as their representatives.

“I wish to present a petition by customers of defunct Gold Coast Fund Management. Mr Speaker, pursuant to Order 76 (3), I move that the petition be read and I also move that by Order 76(3) that the petition be referred to a committee pursuant to Order 191 of our Standing Orders which deals with the constitution of special or ad-hoc committees to look into matters referred to it by Mr Speaker.”