The customers of Menzgold Ghana Limited are not greedy people, the CEO of the now-defunct gold-trading firm has said.

“I do not subscribe to the assertion that Menzgold customers were greedy”, Nana Appiah Mensah told journalists on Monday, 19 August 2019 at a press conference.

He also denied claims that he was operating a Ponzi scheme.

“Menzgold is not a Ponzi Scheme”, he asserted, adding: "It is just an innovative drive, our creation".

According to him, "People will contest what they do not know".

Speaking at the 20th-anniversary ceremony of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, 21 November 2018, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said all those who invested in Menzgold were greedy and did so at their own peril.

"As we try to clean up the financial services sector, I know the SEC has come down hard, strong and justifiably on Menzgold.

"But the issue with a company of Menzgold … it’s become an issue of greed as a people and our own behaviour when we are so clear as educated as we might be, that when we went there, there was no licence.

"I think it is not in the place of government to fund or get your money back for you.

"It was an obvious trap that you went into.

"Maybe we, as an industry, we should also push the whole issue of education and empowerment so that people do not fall prey to that", he added and wondered how enlightened people could fall into such a trap.”