Godfred Dame, Ghana’s Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, has described the harm done to the country’s financial industry by the defunct gold dealership company Menzgold Limited.
He claims that the firm’s demise, which entailed illegal gold trade, had negative effects on many Ghanaian homes and had sparked a social crisis.
Godfred Dame stated that the dockets of the financial crimes committed in the Menzgold scandal are almost ready for the prosecution to start at the 39th Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime at the Cambridge University-UK.
“Prominent among such entities was an amorphous organisation operating a microfinance institution under the guise of gold trading and illegally using the name of a bank calling itself Menzbank.
Menzgold, as it was also called, had been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectibles from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns to clients without a licence from the relevant authorities†the AG recounted.
“Against caution from the Central Bank, tens of thousands of individuals got hooked on the scheme devised by the company. Following the close down by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the customers could not retrieve their funds.
The company relied on the greed and ignorance of thousands of otherwise hardworking Ghanaians who were prepared to pay their life savings to the suspects in the case, resulting in losses worth millions of dollars†Godfred Dame explained.
The Attorney General said the saga has over the years culminated in a social crisis which resulted in protests and some level of unrest in the financial section.
“The situation caused misery and distress to many homes and unleashed a social crisis as riots and demonstrations broke out on the streets of Accra and other parts of the country,†he stated
“In real terms, people lost their homes, and some marriages have even broken up as a result of the Menzgold saga. Indeed, one lawyer suggested that the story of Menzgold could cause a civil war in Ghana in a manner akin to the civil war in Albania in 1997 caused by aggrieved customers of a Ponzi scheme,†the A-G noted.
He continued, “By the Grace of God, Ghana was saved from such a situation as a result of the prompt action taken by authorities at the helm of the financial system. I am happy to state that after painstaking investigations, dockets on that financial crime are almost ready for prosecution to commence in earnest.”
He added that apart from the Menzgold saga, the Office of the Attorney-General is prosecuting other high-profile cases involving the offences of willfully causing financial loss to the State such as stealing, corruption, fraud, procurement breaches and money laundering.
These cases, according to Godfred Dame, form parts of efforts to hold public officers and entities accountable.
He revealed that these crimes however amount to a sum of over $850 million.