CASLOC appeals to gov’t to pay their locked up funds

The members of the Coalition of Affected Savings and Loans Companies (CASLOC), an organisation of clients of collapsed savings and loans institutions, have appealed to the government to pay back their locked up funds.

According to them, they have been validated as far back as 2018, but are yet to be paid their funds.

At a news conference held in Kumasi recently, they expressed worry over why some customers of these defunct financial institutions have been paid, but their funds have not been released to them.

Mr. Ernest Aban, spokesman for the group and a victim of the defunct Noble Dream, explained that since the government issued a directive – that clients of collapsed microfinance and savings and loans organisations should be paid – it seems the Receiver is playing tricks on customers of Noble Dream.

According to Aban, in 2018, the Receiver carried out manual validation exercises on them, only for him to turn around and say he does not have their data to pay them their locked up funds.

He wondered why the state was not querying the Chief Executive Officer of Noble Dream.

“We need our money; if they pay us nothing more, our money is what we need. We are all Ghanaians and yet some people are being paid, so what about us? Are we not Ghanaians?” he asked.

Speaking to a worried woman who mentioned her name as Ama Bemah, she explained that she started saving with the defunct Noble Dream sometime in 2014 when her son was in Junior High School (JHS).

According to her, the sole motive of her savings was to help her son gain admission to Senior High School (SHS), having completed JHS.  She regretted that when she needed the money to sponsor the SHS education of her son, she was told the financial institution had collapsed.

“I am a single parent, and so my son could not go to SHS and his future is bleak. We are pleading with Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to pay us our money.”

Mr. Isaac Koranteng, another customer of Noble Dream, also claimed he took his money to Noble Dream only to be told that the bank had collapsed.

According to him, since 2014 he has been relying on his wife and  has not heard any message from the microfinance company about the GH¢10,000 he had invested.

“The new government assured us that they will pay us our money, so we were expecting that they will call and pay us. We were called for validation sometime in 2018, and we had to pay GH¢15 per head for the validation fee, and yet we have not heard anything from them again.”

Vida Appiah Dankwa, an octogenarian resident of Asuofia-Nketai who is also a victim, alleged that she saved GH¢2,000 with the defunct African Trust.

Attempts to reach the Receiver of the collapsed microfinance, savings and loans organisations, Eric Nana Nipah, to respond to the claims by CASLOC members did not materialise, as he failed to respond to a text message sent him.

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