The Coalition of Affected Savings and Loans Customers (CASLOC) Secretary, Ezekiel Annor Akagbo has made known that the rate at which customers locked- up funds are been paid is not encouraging to the welfare of its members.

CASLOC is an association of depositors of the 23 Savings and Loans and Finance services whose licenses were revoked by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on the August 16, 2019 with an objective of  engaging governments through all available legal means and the best ways possible in retrieving locked up funds as early as possible.

Speaking at a press conference organized in the capital of the Ashanti Region on Wednesday, January 15, the secretary on behalf of customers appreciated the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and his government for heeding to their plea to pay their locked up funds after they held a maiden press conference last year and addressed their petitions to government to provide clarification on a usage of a GH₵1.2bn fund.

He revealed that customers of First Allied, GN and Unicredit have started receiving their monies despite court issues but are not content at the rate at which their monies are been settled.

According to Mr. Akagbo, the tempo and format at which the funds are been resolved is frustrating. He called on government to put in appropriate measures to settle CASLOC members and obliterate the GH₵20,000 cap payments to enable customers obtain their full sum of money.

“We are still not happy at all but to a number of issues pertaining to the payment procedure and formular being used in the payment of our monies to us,” he said

“Some of the payment issues we are very much displeased with include the slow pace, in other words the tortoise of snail pace in which the payments are been made, the use of text message for the payment and the 20,000 Ghana cedis capped payments for customers whose deposit exceed that 20,000 amount.

The Secretary requested an evaluation by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana on the three procedures and formulas used in paying the deposited monies. He referenced that the President's assurance in his end of year message to settle customers or depositors of the 23 Savings and Loans and Finance services whose licenses were revoked by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) was a surety therefore the right approach should be employed.

“If the president said he has directed the Ministry to work with the Bank of Ghana, to ensure that we are treated like the nine collapsed Universal Banks, then in other to believe fully in what the President said, we want the current payment procedure to be changed or revised in order to ensure the immediate retrieval of our locked up funds.

“We don’t want to wait in a situation where a customer has to wait till he or she receives a text message from the receiver before he or she has the right to visit a nearby CBG before he or she can have access to her locked up funds and in some cases, to only some part or portion of his or her locked up funds” he added

“We want the Consolidated Savings and Loans Company or a Consolidated Micro Finance Company to be set up and all our accounts migrated and credited fully there, if only the current banking and current depositors Act will permit that. And even if it does not permit that, we appeal that all our accounts are migrated to an existing universal bank or banks possibly the Consolidated Banks.

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CASLOC in their statement further challenged government and gave up to the end of January for the review to be conducted before they take any necessary action due to the unfavoring method of disbursing their locked up funds.

“We want to see that this has been done for us latest by January 2020. Failure to do this for us will compel us to advise ourselves. If this current trend of payment should continue, then no customer is aware of exactly he or she is going to have access to his or her locked up funds,” he ended.