Passionate plea to BoG: Hear the plea of hurting customers and let their cries come unto thee
Reading a financial data put out this week by the Bank of Ghana (BoG); one could not help standing up to give them thumps up for great financial indicators.
According to the data on micro-economic gains, there has been a strong appreciation of the Cedi with a year on gain of 40+ per cent in value against the US Dollar. The monetary policy rate has been cut from 18 per cent to 15.5 perc ent.
The data further informs us that public debt has reduced by GH¢40bn, domestic debt dropped about 22 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and so also a drop in the country’s external debt.
But what impact us perhaps most with direct benefits in one’s pocket are the drops in interest rate and inflation which is reportedly gone down to a single digit while food inflation is said to have been contained.
All these economic gains at the micro level within a year are appreciable and one is most grateful, hoping the trend will continue.
Regulator, mediator
However, one would like to request the central bank as the regulator, to cast its mind back to the performance of some financial institutions under its purview.
They have become thorns in the flesh of their customers, causing deep hurts and regrets which only BoG can help as a regulator and perhaps, a mediator.
With relationships gone sore as customers have kind of abandoned any interest, one believes the BoG can attend to the problems of those institutions so they can also honour their obligations to the loyal customers who, thinking ahead, once had confidence in them by putting their monies in there for their future securities.
It gets ridiculous and almost absurd that over the last six years or more, investors have been at a loss as to what is going on with their investments in some financial institution at a time when they needed to withdraw those funds, partial or its entirety.
The way issues have been left to travel this far, it begs the question as to whether BoG is on top of whatever the problem is and which is negatively impacting investors including pensioners.
At a time when the micro-economic indicators are giving assuring pointers, is it not time that the central bank also picked up the interest and concerns of disappointed individuals with their life investments locked up.
If BoG has had confidence in these institutions and kept them in business, can they not listen to the pleas of the hurting customers?
One does not want to assume that the central bank is not aware of what is going on with people’s investments.
Customers have put in claims for their monies, sometimes in part to enable them to meet critical needs yet months pass by and their requests are not met and no one says anything to them either.
And if the individual investor is suffering this badly, one can only imagine that those entrepreneurs or small scale businesses who relied on those institutions to lend them support because they could not afford bank borrowings must also be suffering because funds are not forthcoming from those sectors.
The question will always remain whether the central bank as a regulator and overseer know about the cries of desperate customers of the financial institutions under them and who were left to carry on despite the financial clean up exercise years ago.
Can a reminder be sent to BoG that hundreds of customers have been abandoned and their funds locked up with no one talking to them?
It has been a painful endurance and some customers have just given up in view of the needless stress and with no explanations forthcoming.
It has been a painful endurance, especially for those pensioners who, at the time of putting those monies aside, believed they were doing the right thing.
They felt secured and what motivated them most was the fact that the BoG was regulating them on the market.
Even at the time of the banking crisis some of those institutions were not touched by the regulator, therefore giving the impression that those institutions were good enough to remain in business.
At the time, the actions or inaction of the central bank were a powerful pillar for these financial institutions to stand on to attract even more investors.
And one believes they did too.
Having waited for years and watched the silence of the managers of these institutions, it is clear that desperate investors wanting to withdraw their funds are and have been at a crossroad for too long.
They cannot wait any longer to see some action now that the regulator is seen busy, resetting and reshaping at the micro level.
May the resetting and reshaping agenda trickle down to help those whose forgotten investments are causing them anguish.
For now, one can only draw attention, in case they have forgotten, that for over six years, some financial institutions under them are refusing to pay their customers.
Their fervent prayer is for the regulator, BoG, to hear their petition and let their cry come unto them.
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