Savings And Loans Customers Still Unpaid Locked Up Money After Banking Sector Clean Up …Dr. Nawum Baa

A columnist for online news portal, Ghanaweb, Dr. Ayaarim Nawum Baa, has made the point that many customers of savings and loans companies whose monies are locked up with banks as a result of the banking sector clean up by government continue to remain unpaid.

In a write-up, Dr. Nawum Baa points out that after January 2020, when a coalition of these affected customers last made an appeal to be paid, they have still remained unpaid.

“On 15th January, 2020, the Coalition of Affected Savings and Loans Customers (CASLOC) at a press conference in Kumasi announced that about 3.3 million of their members have their money locked up at financial institutions whose licences were revoked by the Bank of Ghana and other regulators. They appealed to government to come to their aid.

“But five months after this distress call nothing has been done about their plights. Their fear are morphing into panic, and they are seething with anger and frustration,” he wrote.

According to Dr. Nawum Baa the alacrity with which government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic needs to be applied to resolve the fallouts from the clean up as many people have been plunged into destitution that has killed more than covid-19.

“I feel entitled to believe that the banking crisis in Ghana is killing more people than the dreaded COVID-19, and the exigencies of getting this matter solved has become non-negotiable.”

It is not exactly clear how many people have died as a result of the collateral damage that resulted from the banking sector clean up even though there have been reports of suicide.

However, the Centre for Socioeconomic Studies (CSS) has said over one million Ghanaians lost their jobs due to the clean up. The Nawum Baa points out that the effects of such unemployment coupled with the locking up funds has left many Ghanaians stranded.

“Some victims have already died, others are sick, more are poverty-stricken and most are sorrow-blackened. Aside wearing the nose masks against COVID-19, victims of the banking crisis are wearing masks of destitution.

“A startling example is a sick woman whose money has been locked up. Her life is ebbing like sand through the fingers, and that is not all — her landlord went to visit her not because of her sickness. The. Rent. Is. Due. The woman needs her money now, but government has given her a piece of paper called bond which will mature in five years without interest. What use is this to a woman going through excruciating pain and embarrassment?

“There are more icky situations: many people who worked at these affected financial institutions have lost their jobs. And most of them who are breadwinners for their families are going through painful, humiliating and life-threatening moments,” he wrote.