Release our locked up funds or we’ll vote you out – Bono East Group to Govt
A group calling itself “We Want Our Money Movement” based in the Bono East Region has vowed to vote against the NPP administration if nothing is done to enable them to retrieve their locked up capital.
The group is made up of clients of some defunct Microfinance Companies including Care for Humanity, Jasta Motors, and Drops, and has about 10,000 members at the moment.
According to the group, the NPP government has not helped them retrieve their funds, as they promised in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
Ernest Anieba Aninganigu, the spokesperson for the group said “We are going to make sure that we vote against the NPP and their MPs within this particular region and all places that these investment companies existed. We are going to make sure that we’ll go round to those areas and campaign seriously against them because we have been disappointed.
“We have made a lot of efforts; we’ve had several press conferences, we have planned on organizing demonstrations but they have disappointed us. We have met the two regional ministers, that is the Brong Ahafo ministers by then and they all denied doing any wrong and said that they were going to help.”
Background
In 2015, some microfinance companies in the Brong Ahafo region found themselves in a mess, following accusations that they squandered the deposits of their customers.
DKM Microfinance, Jasta Motors, God is Love Fun Club, and Care for Humanity were some of the companies that went out of business.
According to then-President, John Mahama and his Finance Minister, DKM Microfinance alone had spent about 77 million Ghana Cedis of their clients’ monies.
The Bank of Ghana, in the early parts of 2016 set up a new office in the region to be able to closely supervise the activities of the microfinance companies in order to curb the incidences of fraud in the companies.
President Akufo-Addo in his campaign towards the 2016 elections assured the clients of these companies that he would retrieve their locked up monies for them when he is voted into power.