With much regret, the Today Newspaper has to set the records straight with regards to the agitation by customers of BlackShield Capital (Gold Coast Fund Management) against the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) about the non payment of their validated investments.  We know the Registrar of Companies Mrs. Jemima Oware as an experienced and long serving public servant.  She has served as Registrar-General for several years and worked in that office spanning the tenure of multiple political administrations.  

We hold her in high regard.  However, we think that some people in government may have put her up to do their bidding with malice against her office and person.  She is doing a job for SEC that is a losing proposition.  Possibly, there are political office holders hiding behind and pushing her and her reputation into jeopardy.

On Joy FM’s PM Express programme last week, Mrs. Oware stated that BlackShield customers have not been paid their investments by her office because the courts have not issued an order for BlackShield to be liquidated.  We stand firm on solid ground to ask her not to throw dust into the eyes of BlackShield customers and the general public.  The fund being used to pay the customers of fund management companies whose licenses were revoked was approved by Parliament.  We have checked Hansard records.  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?

Mrs. Oware reportedly has been a member of the SEC Board of Directors and a customer of BlackShield.  She is not alone in this.  Many public officers have been customers of BlackShield.  The Minister of Finance’s company, Databank has been a customer of BlackShield.  The former Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Charles Adu Boahen’s company has been a customer of BlackShield.  

Mrs. Oware is fully aware of the proposals made by BlackShield to pay customers’ investments over a three year period but which were rejected by SEC before the company’s license was revoked.  She is also aware that BlackShield appealed the revocation of its license but the hearing was truncated by SEC.  Who ordered the revocation of the license without the exhaustion of due process? Was Mrs. Oware not aware that H.E. The President had appointed someone to mediate the matter between SEC and BlackShield before she accepted the job to liquidate BlackShield?

When she states that her office is seeking the liquidation of BlackShield because it has not been able to pay the customers their investments, we must correct this assertion.  Immediately the BlackShield license was revoked, SEC appointed an Agent to seize its offices, records and lock the employees out.  BlackShield’s computer server with customers information was seized.  It is the same server that has information on investments made with customers’ monies.  So SEC who employed Mrs Oware, closed the company prematurely and prevented its employees from working to make money to pay the customers.

The Shareholders of BlackShield went to court to assert their rights infringed upon by SEC.  As an experienced professional, we believe Mrs. Oware knows this.  

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”.  So the debt keeps swelling up with interest.  Mrs. Oware should ask her paymasters at SEC and the Ministry of Finance to work with BlackShield’s Shareholders to retrieve funds held up in government’s treasury.  That money will be sufficient to pay BlackShield customers.  Mrs. Oware should stop talking about BlackShield and focus on the Ministry of Finance and government’s treasury.  

Perhaps the real issue is the government’s treasury does not have the money needed to pay BlackShield or the customers.  If that is the case, why continue to peddle the falsehood that BlackShield must be liquidated before the customers are paid?  Will Mrs. Oware be able to unlock the funds held up by government’s treasury if she gets a liquidation order?  We want to know.