The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has written to gold-trading firm, Menzgold Ghana Company, to stop forthwith, all trading in gold without licence.

It follows several warnings from the Bank of Ghana to the local gold firm, to stop trading in gold without licence.

The central bank, on 7 August 2018, issued a public notice, the fourth of many, that it was in discussions with relevant regulatory authorities to sanction Menzgold for engaging in “solicitation, receipt of money or investment and the payment of dividends or returns to its clients” without a licence to do so.

The BoG, in an advertorial in the dailies signed by Mrs Caroline Otoo, Secretary to Governor Dr Ernest Addison, said in spite of several of cautions to Menzgold Ghana Company Limited to desist from the act, it persists in its deposit-taking activity in breach of section 6(1) of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930).

The central bank cautioned the general public that anyone who transacts “any of the above-mentioned businesses with Menzgold Ghana Company Limited does so at his or her own risk,” and the Bank of Ghana will not be liable in the event of loss of investments of deposits.

Nana Appiah Mensah, owner of the gold-buying firm, has denied on a number of occasions that his company takes deposits.