It has emerged that even before the Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh-led Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) went for the kill last month, it had technically halted the operations of BlackShield Capital Management (formerly Gold Coast Securities).
This, according to our sources, has since angered some leaders of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government at the grassroots level.
Our investigations indicated that they were shocked the so-called technical people did not take the economic realities in the country into account.
They asked: “Why trigger unemployment when Dr Nduom’s companies gave many young people real jobs that are hard to find”?
Last month, SEC revoked the license of Gold Coast, an entity of Groupe Nduom, and 52 other fund managers in the country.
But what SEC did was to just complete what it started early this year as far as the revocation of Gold Coast license was concerned.
This is because a letter by the SEC Boss, Rev Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, dated January 11, 2019 and sighted by Today directed Gold Coast to cease collection or receipts of new funds or investment from customers and investors which directive Gold Coast adhered to.
The reason, the letter explained, was the company’s inability to honour redemption of matured investments from clients, investors and customers.
“So since January this year, Gold Coast unofficially has been out of business because of the directive from SEC so the announcement of the revocation of our license was to finish the kill,” a top management staff member told Today.
Meanwhile, our investigations have uncovered that Gold Coast, until the revocation of its license, had within the period from August 2018 to the time of the revocation paid 9,060 customers who invested in its Structured Finance (SF) or Guaranteed Fund product.
This figure, Today understands, constitutes a total amount of GHC225 million which has so far been paid to customers of Gold Coast either in cash or asset swap.
“So a lot of customers, particularly those with more than GHC20,000 investment, are wondering what will happen to their investments. They believe that one way or the other Dr Nduom would have made good his promise to pay back their investments over time,” a customer of defunct Gold Coast told Today.
Today further gathered that many customers swapped their investments for vehicles, land, TV sets generators among others.
According to Gold Coast, it was in accordance with its open commitment to complete total redemption of customers who have their investments and other forms of deposits with the SF portfolio within a three-year period.
Over investigations further showed that a large chunk of Gold Coast’s SF products were invested in long-term projects like road construction, sea defence projects, modernised agriculture, markets and many other infrastructural projects
According to the company, it decided to invest in such long-term developmental projects when it became apparent that most investors of the short-term SF product decided to roll over or reinvest their deposits after the expiration of the regulatory three months period.
“So although on the face value, the matured date for the SF portfolio was three months, the fact remains that most customers had overstretched the maturity period because of their decisions to roll over their investments after the three months maturity period,” the company said.
It added: “Gold Coast had no option than to invest these investments in the long-term to ensure that customers get value for their investments.”
Nonetheless, it said before its revocation, it put in place contingencies to ensure that every customer got their monies paid back to them within the three-year period set to redeem every deposit due every customer barring any unforeseen circumstances.
“The NPP leaders, therefore, wonder that if government says it has money available to pay contractors, why doesn’t it just pay BlackShield/Gold Coast contractors and put in steps to ensure the money is paid to customers through supervision.”
“They don’t think SEC learned from the banking sector experience. They don’t want their party to be known as job killers. Not with 2020 around the corner,” our source said.
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