The seven customers of embattled gold dealership firm Menzgold have been arrested for flouting a police order not to demonstrate.
They are part of about a hundred customers who protested over the failure of government to help them retrieve their locked-up investments.
They have been charged with offensive conduct and unlawful assembly in the Tuesday morning demonstration in the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi.
They are expected to re-appear before the court on Wednesday.
Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Gordon Ahianyo told Joy News, although the customers were cautioned, they ignored the directive and went ahead with the demonstration.
“We have people who are behind this demonstration...they are over one hundred if I am not mistaken, we are still picking them...we are not going to end now,” he added.
The PRO said they have the names and telephone numbers of the organizers of the demonstration.
Firefighters were deployed to the scene on Tuesday as the customers blocked the roads and burnt disposed car tyres during their protest. The situation caused the blockage of the road linking Adum and Amakom, two suburbs of Kumasi.
Some of the protestors expressed their disappointment with the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. One of them who spoke to Joy News expressed surprise at government’s nonchalant attitude to their plight.
Read More: Kumasi: Three arrested in illegal Menzgold demo
This is not the first time these aggrieved customers have made their concerns about the saga publicly known. Days before Christmas, they besieged the Dzorwulu office of Menzgold in Accra to demand their investments paid to them.
Also, in November, they demonstrated at the Nkrumah Circle calling on government to help them get back their money.
But, the Finance Minister in November 2018, said government will not bail-out the aggrieved customers.
“It is not in the place of government to refund or get your money for you,” he said and indicated at the third Capital Market conference in Accra that doing so would be bailing out greed.
Read more: 'It's greed' - Finance minister rules out bail-out for Menzgold customers
Also, Deputy Governor of the BoG, Elsie Awadzi, told Daniel Dadzie on the Super Morning Show, Tuesday that the Bank of Ghana has no power to intervene in the case of the Menzgold customers.
“We don’t even have the power to intervene; we didn’t regulate it, there is no way we are going to do anything. We don’t have anything to do with Menzgold unfortunately,” she stated.
She added that the Bank of Ghana was very clear since the beginning that Menzgold was an unlicensed operation, therefore, anyone who went ahead to deal with them did so at their own risk.
Read more: VIDEO: Menzgold saga; We don’t have the power to intervene – BoG
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