Isaac and Bless Boahen saved for months to fund her economics doctorate, but when the time came to cash in the investment, they were left empty handed.

Adapted from https://www.google9ja.com/2019/08/a-16-billion-horror-as-ghana-investors.html

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The couple are among at least 70,000 investors who have become collateral damage from a cleanup of Ghana’s banking industry. The crackdown, which reduced the number of lenders by a third and saw the closure of 23 savings and loans companies, also triggered a run on fund managers, who couldn’t sell their holdings fast enough to meet demand.

That’s tying up as much as 9 billion cedis ($1.6 billion) of investments, more than a third of the 25 billion cedis in assets that private fund managers oversee for retail and institutional investors.

“My wife was very disturbed,” the 36-year-old said by phone from Kumasi in Ghana’s Ashanti Region. They’re not getting answers and are now worried they’ll never get back the 12,000 cedis they expected back from their investment. “If I knew this would happen, I wouldn’t have gone there.”

They’re in for a long wait. The nation’s markets regulator is looking into whether 21 fund managers violated rules by placing their clients’ money into illiquid assets. The Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up the pressure, blocking these money managers from accepting new investments for fear they may pay out existing investors.

“The harm has already been done,” Lord Mensah, a senior finance lecturer at the University of Ghana, said by phone. “Assets need to be protected.”

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As much as 5 billion cedis is tied up in unlisted bonds, direct private-equity stakes and other deals with small- and medium-sized businesses, according to the SEC. Another 4 billion cedis is stuck in fixed-term investments with banks rescued during the clean up, savings and loans companies, and microlenders.

Read more about Ghana’s banking overhaul at https://www.google9ja.com/2019/08/a-16-billion-horror-as-ghana-investors.html

Lalasticlacla Dominique mynd44 marpol, do you think the same is bound to happen in Nigeria?