Receiver invites buyers for properties belonging to collapsed microfinance firms
The Receiver of some collapsed financial firms has requested bids from the public to sell properties of the collapsed firms to raise money.
The Receiver has advertised over 50 used cars, landed property and chattels from the Greater Accra, Ashanti Region and Western Region for auction.
Different brands and models of cars, including Ford Explorer and Everest, Toyota, KIA Picanto and Sportage, Hyundai Accent and Grande, Honda Civic, Mazda, Nissan Hardbody and Frontier, TATA, Isuzu, Citroen and Mitsubishi, are on display.
These are properties of 347 microfinance companies, and 23 savings & loans and finance house companies whose licenses were revoked on May 31 and August 16, in 2019.
The Receiver, Eric Nipah, a Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana Limited, noted in a statement that buyers could visit the Receiver’s official website to select the properties and place their bids at www.ghreceiverships.com.
Mr Nipah, who was appointed by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) indicated that the virtual process had been implemented to minimise physical contact in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The online process will ensure social distance as outlined in the protocols to fight the spread of the infection.
“All interested bidders should submit their bids in a signed and dated formal letter, scanned and attached in an email addressed to the following email address, clearly indicating the item(s) of the asset(s) they are interested in and the bid amount for each asset: vehicletender.receivership@gmail.com
Deadline for the bids is Friday, July 31 and offers which fall short of the listed requirement will be rejected.
The highest bidder shall be the purchaser and winners will be notified and will have 48 hours to make the payment or lose the opportunity.
Further information could be sought via the Receiver’s authorised representatives, namely Nicholas Anum on 0243390044 and Wilfred Tackie on 0249889540.
Background
The apex bank took action to withdraw the licences pursuant to section 123 (1) of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), which requires the BoG to revoke the licences of a bank or Specialised Deposit-taking Institution (SDI), when it determines that the institution is insolvent or is likely to become insolvent within the next 60 days.
The BOG cited insolvency and dormancy for the move to sanitise and stabilise the financial sector after it had taken similar action against banks.
The BoG said in a statement that majority of licensed microfinance companies began to show signs of distress from 2014 onwards, as a result of severe undercapitalisation, high cost of operations largely from high and unsustainable interest rates offered to depositors, poor lending and investment practices leading to inordinate losses, diversion of customer deposits into private, unprofitable and speculative ventures, general non-compliance with prudential norms, poor corporate governance, weak internal controls, and fraud, among others.
“Consequently, the financial position of these institutions continued to deteriorate, leading to their insolvency with the majority of them ceasing operations and closing their offices with depositors’ funds locked up.
“Even those that have not closed their offices are unable to pay their depositors. This has placed a substantial amount of depositors’ funds at risk,” the release pointed out.