No end date yet for validation exercise for investors of defunct fund managers

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, says it has not yet set a date to end the filing of validation for claims by customers of the defunct fund management companies since it wants to cater for as many investors as possible.

The Commission says the move is necessary to assure customers and rebuild confidence in the investment market. Validation processes commenced a week ago at designated branches of the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited, across the country.

For the first two days, frustrated customers who thronged the various CBG branches were left stranded as no SEC official was present to serve them.

But the Securities and Exchange Commission attributed the development to logistical challenges due to the enormous number of investors to cater for.

Deputy Director General of the SEC, Paul Ababio said the outfit was increasing its agents to normalize the process by Wednesday. Validation indeed started on Wednesday.

Commenting on whether there is a deadline for customers to validate their claims, Mr. Ababio told Citi Business News they will rather allow as much time as possible. He however cautioned that there could be court cases that may delay the process.

“I think for now this process will continue for some time. We’ve kept it open ended because of the widespread nature and then because of ongoing court processes, we also want to study the court responses because some of these processes also affect when we will end the process. So it’ll be ongoing for some time. Once we see the volume and we get a substantive portion, we will give further update to the public” he assured.

The SEC in November this year revoked the licenses of 53 fund management companies for various regulatory infractions.

It emerged that about 8 billion cedis of investment funds have been locked up in the collapsed companies.

The government has since made some allocation to pay part of the funds to the affected investors.

Source: Citifm