The Receiver of the collapsed financial institutions, Mr Eric Nana Nipah, has said that more than GH¢745 million has so far been disbursed to about 15,000 customers whose deposits were locked up in the defunct companies.
In a statement issued yesterday, Mr Nipah said as of last Friday, that amount had been transferred to Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG) to be used to credit the accounts of customers of the collapsed savings and loans companies (S&LCs), microfinance institutions (MFIs) and micro-credit companies (MCCs).
The receiver, who is a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ghana) Limited (PwC), assured all affected depositors that they would be settled fully by March 31.
The statement, which provided an update on the status of the payment process, added that the GH¢745 million was taken from the GH¢1 billion cash component of the funds that the government gave to the receiver and official liquidator to be used to pay the deposits of affected customers fully.
It said of the GH¢5 billion that the government released to the receiver and official liquidator to be used to settle depositor funds, GH¢1 billion was in cash, while the remainder was in bonds.
Before the government resolved to use public funds to settle the full amounts of depositors, affected customers were to receive a maximum of GH¢20,000 as reimbursement.
The statement said out of over 360,000 depositor claims, worth approximately GH¢6.4 billion, received from the S&LCs, MFIs and MCCs, more than 320,000 validated claims had been fully settled in cash.
To help cover the remaining claims, numbering about 40,000, the Receiver indicated that the government provided additional funding “by way of a combination of cash and bonds, totalling approximately GH¢5 billion to the Receiver and Official Liquidator”.
That, he said, was to “ensure that all outstanding depositor claims duly submitted and validated in the resolution process are totally satisfied”.
“The payment of the approximately 40,000 remaining depositor claims began in earnest on February 24, funded by the cash component of the GH¢5 billion, amounting to GH¢1 billion,” it added.
It promised to give details of the bonds that would be issued to depositors whose claims would not be fully satisfied by the payment of cash alone in the course of this week..
The statement said it was expected that overall, approximately 352,0000 depositor claims would be fully settled with cash only by the conclusion of depositor payments.
In the worst-case scenario, it said, “the remaining 8,000 depositor claims, worth approximately GH¢4 billion, will be fully settled by March 31 with a combination of cash and bonds”.
It advised stakeholders to direct all concerns on the receivership process to the receiver for the necessary actions to be taken.
