The Menzgold scandal continues to reverberate throughout the country; it’s million plus clients have been left to hold the bag, their hard earned savings depleted and their lives ruined.
When Menzgold appeared on the scene a couple of years ago dangling irresistible promises of huge returns on investments, thousands of unsuspecting Ghanaians took the bait; many flocked to throw in their lot with the company, to take a chance at becoming rich overnight by investing their savings.
Initially, the company lived up to its promises to investors. It paid out dividends without fail, without breaking a sweat and investors smiled all the way to the bank.
For a time, things went swimmingly well until the payment of dividends became a hurdle, a hard climb for the company. Somewhere along the way, things went south, very wrong.
Asked to stop taking on new customers by authorities, the company found itself in a quandary. No new customers meant no infusion of cash to pay investors.
As it emerged, Menzgold was an elaborate Ponzi scheme, designed to fleece millions of Ghanaians while enriching a few. The company did not have the vast financial resources it falsely claimed to possess, and was primarily using the money of investors to pay other investors.
Now that the whole Menzgold financial pyramid has crumbled, some opinion leaders have taken to the air waves to put the blame squarely on customers for buying the gimmicks perpetrated by the company.
Ghanaians who invested in Menzgold were forewarned, the critics say, but greed clouded their good judgment, they add.
A leading figure at Imani, an Accra based think tank, even had the audacity to advance the noxious idea that government should not compensate the customers of Menzgold.
It is utter nonsense what these so called pundits are spewing. They have not been directly affected, they haven’t lost fortunes, so they don’t feel the pain of those who have lost their hard earning savings.
Any level headed Ghanaian would have done what Menzgold customers did, invest in a company that promised handsome dividends. Who among us does not want to have minimal financial problems?
What these smart asses on television and radio are electing to overlook is the fact that Menzgold was enabled by the government; it acquired its operating license from the government by way of the SEC which failed miserably to do due diligence on the background of the company.
All in all, the government gave the company the green light to fleece Ghanaians. Menzgold won’t have operated with such reckless abandon if the government hadn’t endorsed it.
Against this scandalous background, the government should be held responsible for the Menzgold fiasco. It should be asked in no uncertain terms to refund what investors put into Menzgold. This is a matter of justice and fairness, values our government should uphold.
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