Management of embattled gold dealership, Menzgold Ghana Limited, has expressed optimism that its properties at Amakom in the Ashanti Region will not be auctioned despite a Kumasi Circuit Court ruling for an auction to be undertaken.
The Circuit Court ruled earlier this week that the company’s properties be auctioned by January 16, 2019, to pay off clients who are owed by the company. One of the clients had dragged the company to court over his locked up investment.
But the Communications Director of the company, Nii Armah Amarteifio, in an interview with Citi News explained that the legal team of the company will find alternative measures of resolving the situation to avoid an auction.
“I don’t even think that this will at the end of the day get to the stage where we have to auction the properties as the judge has ruled. Our lawyers will sit down and go into it to see how best to go about it so we don’t get to the point where we have to auction those properties in Kumasi.”
Menzgold Ghana Limited has been struggling in the past three months to pay its clients their dividends or return their principal investments following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s directive to the company to halt accepting new investments.
With hundreds of customers besieging the company’s premises each day over their locked up investment, the company through various press releases announced various payment schedules, most of which it was not able to deliver on, to the disappointment of customers.
While some customers have staged various demonstrations to register their displeasure over the situation, others have taken legal action against the company.
Recently some 100 retired and active Police Officers at the Kasoa Divisional Police Command in the Central Region filed a writ at the Accra High Court against Menzgold, in a bid to retrieve their locked up investments.
A reverend minister and a client of the company in October 2018 also sued the firm for breach of contract and misrepresentation.
Rev. Joseph Appiah Odei in his writ said he deposited 12 pounds of gold estimated at GH¢ 24,000 for 12 months, and paid a non-refundable commission of GH¢1,200 to Menzgold.
The court is yet to take a decision on those matters.
The last formal communication from Menzgold was about their staff being asked to proceed on a 10-day compulsory leave and the halting of its online platform introduced much later.
The staff in protest against the action in a public statement said Menzgold managers were trying to flee Ghana following the controversies. They also claimed that close associates of the company who had their investments locked up were being paid secretly.
Meanwhile the company has announced a new payment schedule and has indicated that it will from begin repayment of costumers’ investments.
“We had to come up with the final schedule where we are going to spell out the processes of payment to customers. The last time I spoke to the team, they are almost done with the communiqué I’m sure my next week we will issue it and that will spell out the payment plan for customers and the way forward for the company,” Nii Armah Amarteifio said.
source: Citi Newsroom
