Aggrieved customers of ‘defunct’ gold collectibles firm, Menzgold Ghana, have stormed the private residence of Nana Appiah Mensah aka NAM1, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Their mission to his residence on Wednesday morning, January 8, 2020, in Accra, was to demand the payment of their locked up funds with Menzgold Ghana. One of the customer observed that “We are here to collect our monies. That is why we are here. We are not here to damage anything or to harass anybody. We are here peacefully for our invested monies. That is the reason we are here.”
They forced their way into NAM1’s Trasacco Estate, demanding their money. Initially, the customers, numbering over 500 from different parts of the country, were denied entry into the premises of NAM1. But they overpowered the security personnel there and made their way to the residence of the once famous NAM1. They had converged at Shiashie, a suburb of Accra in the early morning of Wednesday before heading to NAM1’s residence. Police personnel were later deployed to the residence and some of the aggrieved customers were arrested.
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Menzgold Customers have embarked on several of protest actions since the inception of the company’s woes, beginning from September 7, 2017. Menzgold was closed down in 2018 following it’s legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which started in September 2017. SEC had described the deposit taking business of Menzgold as illegal, ordering it to suspend its operations.
‘Failed’ Promise
Late last year, Menzgold announced that it had started paying it’s customers their locked up cash. But the announcement was greeted with confusion. While management of Menzgold Ghana Limited, claimed that nearly 200 customers of the company had been paid their funds which have been locked up for months, some customers vehemently denied being paid any money.
Communications Director of Menzgold Ghana, Nii Armah Amarteifio, had in an earlier interview with the media claimed that the company had started payments to its customers. He revealed that the about 200 customers are part of the first batch to have been paid.
He noted “I can confirm to you that by the grace of God today we commenced payment and we were able to pay two hundred people today. I will not give you a range but I can tell you for a fact that as we promised our customers that we will commence payment on the 27th December that is today, we have been able to do that and by the grace of God we’ve been able to pay about two hundred people today, who fall in the zero category as we indicated in our press statement.”
“You will be called first; a call will be placed to you and you will be asked to confirm your bank account number if that is done, the money is transferred into your account; that is done by the third party. The most important thing is that we are making payments to customers and today we were able to make payments to about two hundred customers”, according to him.
Interestingly, some customers came out to the media to say they had not received any payment of their locked-up funds as claimed by the company.
An aggrieved customer who pleaded anonymity told the media late last year that “We do not know which people have received their cash because we are in a WhatsApp group and our leaders have not indicated to us payment has commenced”.
Again, one other customer said “It is not true, no one has sent us messages or called us to inform us about commencement of payment, they claim they have started paying but none of our members has confirmed the receipt of any cash”.
The Company despite the several challenges it has faced in recent years including the arrest and detention of its CEO in Dubai over alleged gold scam, pledged to begin payment to customers from December 27, 2019. That was in spite of opposition by some of its customers. It would be recalled that in a December 18, 2019, statement, the company had asked its lawyers to make payments to customers.
In the statement, it noted that “claims shall be settled in full and shall be subject to an invitation from our legal team: Kwame Akuffo & Co. Unlimited strictly following scheduled order.” But its lawyers in a response, indicated that they did not have the “capacity” to pay customers’ locked up cash. Menzgold has approximately 4,600 customers.
BY Melvin Tarlue
