President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has given the assurance that government will pay back the deposits of all customers of the defunct ‘DKM’ micro finance company by the end of October.
He said his administration inherited GH¢700 million debt in the “DKM” brouhaha, but the official liquidator had finalised modalities and customers were expected to receive their deposits as soon as possible.
President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance when he inaugurated the Weddi Africa Tomato Processing and Agro farms under the government’s One-District-Factory (1D1F) initiative at Domfete in the Berekum West District of the Bono Region.
The President made similar comments when he addressed the chiefs and people of Zezera at a durbar in the Jaman South Municipality of the region after he inspected work on the rehabilitation of the 31.7 kilometre Bafaano-Zezera-Adamsu road, as part of his two-day working tour in the region.
DKM was incorporated on April 3, 2013 and was licensed by the Bank of Ghana as a tier two microfinance company on October 25, 2013.
The company operated a 10-branch network in the then Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West regions.
On May 11, 2015, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) suspended the company’s operations for violating the Banking Act.
The FIC also froze five accounts of the company, directing an immediate freeze of all debit transactions on any of the five accounts.
In April 2016, the Registrar-General’s Department began the liquidation process to establish the true financial position of DKM through the conduct of a forensic audit.
The audit confirmed weaknesses, including misreporting to the BoG, mismatches of assets and liabilities and weak governance structures.
The balance sheet of DKM, as of May 11, 2015, showed its net liability stood at negative GH¢21 million.
The company is reported to have diverted GH¢77.2 million of its customers’ deposits to run its subsidiary companies, some of which are DKM Airline Company, DKM Fuel Station, DKM Transport, DKM Shea Butter Company and DKM Mining Company.
