Collapse of microfinance companies: affected employees to receive allowances by end of week

Receiver for the collapsed 347 microfinance companies, Eric Nana Nipah has assured workers of the companies that they would receive their allowances for work done.

According to him, although the companies were no longer in existence, the ex-employees had been contracted to help pay depositors their claims.

Some ex-employees of the insolvent microfinance companies had complained that although they had been engaged by the Receiver to help validate claims of depositors since June, they were yet to receive salaries.

Responding to the claims, Mr Nipah in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM explained that some of them had been paid but those who were yet to receive their allowances were employees of companies who had no funds in their coffers.

"Yes, we reached out to the former staff because with the revocation of the licence, their employment contracts also terminated. They were these staff we call retain staff and because of the historic knowledge they have and because we need them to direct us in terms of our review of documents, we asked them, and this is something we normally do, we asked them to remain and to work with them

"It is true that contracts delayed a bit. And in giving them contracts, I must clarify that they are not my employees, we call them consultants. We don’t pay them salaries. We pay them allowances," he explained.

He explained further that "tt’s true that in some cases, payments are not forthcoming. Quite a number have received their allowances on a month by month basis. Some of them are being processed for payment but there is this group that is yet to be paid.

"When I took over these companies, some of the companies had funds in their volts and in their accounts and for those companies with funds, I’m able to pay and I continue to pay. Some of the companies also had nothing in their coffers and indeed hadn’t even paid their employees for months. So I came and there was nothing there, but since I use the resources of these people, I have an obligation to pay them."

Mr Nipah further indicated that the BoG has given him some funds to pay the affected workers.

"What I have been doing is to engage with my principals, Bog and I am happy to announce that BoG has verbally indicated that they are going to provide funding, in a form of a loan to be able to pay them and I hope that this week I should be in the position to start the payment process for them."