The Coalition of Aggrieved Fund Management Customers have petitioned the government to give its members some of the GH¢1.2bn COVID Alleviation Programme money to survive on.

The members of the coalition were all customers of some 53 fund management companies that were collapsed by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year due to their insolvency.

Ghana’s Parliament recently approved a request by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to access GH¢1.2 billion from the Contingency Fund to finance the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme.

The Coronavirus Alleviation Programme will primarily support the provision of food and water for households; reliefs for health sector workers and soft loans for micro, small and medium-size businesses.

Per the calculation, GH¢600 million will be used to support micro, small and medium scale enterprises, GH¢280 million is expected to go into food and hot meals for the poor, GH¢200 million for water and sanitation bills and GH¢40 million will go into the National Buffer Stock Company.

Additionally, GH¢241 will cover tax waivers for health personnel.

GH¢80 million will, however, be spent on the allowance for health staff and GH¢2 million will be used to cover transportation for health workers.

Mr Ofori-Atta expressed profound gratitude to Parliament for working expeditiously to approve the proposal to lower the cap on the Ghana Stabilisation Fund from US$300 million to US$100 million.

This has enabled the transfer of the cedi equivalent of US$219 million into the Contingency Fund.

The Coalition of Aggrieved Fund Management Customers says it wants the government to extend some of that money to its members since, in the group’s view, its members fall under the category of vulnerable people, “especially the pensioners, the homeless, the physically challenged, widows and persons with underlining health conditions, since we form the majority of the vulnerable group in the Ghanaian society today after our funds got locked up since 2018”.

The group also said: “The government should, with immediate effect, release and disburse the 1 billion Ghana cedis relief package to depositors of the 53 collapsed fund management companies”.

“Unlike our counterparts in the Savings and Loans & Microfinance sector who have either received part or all of their funds, we are, by this petition, pleading with the government to release our funds for us in these times”.