NGO petitions Judicial Council over DKM brouhaha
An NGO has appealed to the Attorney General (AG) and the Judicial Council to restrain the courts from granting reliefs to individual customers to impound embattled DKM Diamond Micro Finance Company’s assets to defray their investments.
The Coalition of Youth for Positive National Development (CYPOND), a non-partisan youth group, believes that singular act by the court is detrimental to the general interest of the company’s affected clients, as it has further aggravated their fear of losing their investments.
Mr. Prosper Puo-ire, convener of the group at a press conference in Wa, noted that the impounding of the Company’s assets by able individuals may bring untold hardships on the thousands of other customers who may not be capable of marshaling the requisite resources to seek legal interventions.
It was reported that last week some customers secured a court order to impound assets of the microfinance company including assets of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), some managers and affiliated subsidiaries.
Also a group of military and police personnel acting on a court directive ransacked various offices of DKM in a ‘Rambo style’.
“Though we accord all due respect to all courts of competent jurisdiction on our land, we hold our singular view that the particular act of tempering with the records of storage devices of the company has the potency of aggravating the already uncertain plight of thousands of poor customers whose faith in retrieving their monies will be enhanced by credible records from the company,” Mr. Puo-ire stated.
He noted that as a nation, “we have left our pot unwatched and now our food burns”, adding that they perceive the hold up between the various micro finance companies and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on one side, and the untold bitterness that thousands of customers, owners and employees of these companies on the other side, as a classic case of a “lizard eating pepper for the toad to sweat”.
“The negligence and high soaring incompetence of some high ranking officials at the BoG resulted in the killer moratorium placed by the Bank on the DKM Diamond Micro Finance Company,” he pointed out.
“A whip should be cracked on the powers that failed to do due diligence at the BoG to serve as a deterrent to leaders of other state regulatory bodies who may be sleeping on their jobs at the expense of the poor Ghanaian tax payer,” Mr. Puo-ire suggested.
The Convener of CYPOND indicated that it would be of greater benefit to allow some of the subsidiary companies of DKM to still operate till the BoG acted for the collective interest of all depositors.
Mr. Puo-ire noted that it was possible if proper tracking mechanisms were put on these companies, the proceeds from their operations could settle a considerable number of customers within the shortest possible time.
Source: GNA