Don’t compare Menzgold to DKM – NAM 1

Nana Appiah Mensah, the chief executive of the long-gone Menzgold Gold Dealership, has objected to the comparison of his business to the similarly long-gone DKM Micro-Finance Company.

Nana Appiah Mensah contends that the habit of equating the two organizations’ bad financial positions and respective roles ignores the unique circumstances that distinguish them.

DKM is remembered as a bankrupt financial institution that abandoned consumers in 2015 when the Banking Act was broken and operations were halted.

The Bank of Ghana took action to resolve the issue and give certain depositors compensation.

Many irate customers have encouraged the government to launch a similar project in the wake of the Menzgold scandal.

Nana Appiah Mensah, however, thinks that such calls can be deceptive.

The inconsistencies between the two organizations’ licenses from various agencies, according to Nana Appiah Mensah, are obvious.

“I have to really make this point. So the customers that are being misled. The difference between Menzgold and a DKM [is that] DKM was a financial institution licensed by our Central Bank. Menzgold is a commodities trading company so we are not licensed [by Central Bank] because we are not a financial institution. So if a DKM suffers operational upset, government can probably come in and decide to either mitigate or pay the customers or I don’t know what the standings orders are because I am not a finance person,” he said on Monday, August 21, 2023.

Because of this, the results vary in terms of the legal remedies that can be used.

Mr. Mensah insisted in a discussion on X (now Twitter) Spaces that paying Menzgold clients by the government may set a dangerous precedent and open the door to possible state abuse by any limited liability company.

He claims that his now-defunct business is making preparations to pay its clients to make all sleeping canines lie.

“I do not expect government of Ghana to make any payment to any Menzgold customer. The reason being that, I will not want my aunty selling in some market, the taxes that she pays, government should commit those taxes to paying customers that I have had a business interaction with and probably there has been a debt situation. We need to be responsible and pay our debt and so we are going to pay our debt.

“As a private company. You have been cured in that situation. Why should government’s come home unless it has been determined that you are in contravention ABCD laws and then on the basis of that, they want to adjust the processes and pierce the veil and effect all those legal remedies that exist under our laws. That’s fine. I am speaking to my clients and my customers. If anybody is going to pay you, it is Menzgold.”

The Chief Executive Officer has positioned himself as the biggest victim of the entire scandal in the ongoing dispute, where victims are tenaciously pursuing justice for their lost assets.

As accountability demands continue, NAM 1 has acknowledged that it is they who are suffering the most as a result of the situation.

The basis for NAM 1’s claim is the alleged personal losses he says he suffered as a result of Menzgold’s failure.

He highlighted that the failure of the company had stripped him of everything.

“If you want to crown the biggest loser in all of this, I am the one, because I lost everything: I lost all my properties and I don’t even have a car ,of my own in this country.” he said during the
contentious discussion on social media.