National Trust Holding Company (NTHC), one of the investment portfolios of the Social Security and National Investment Trust (SSNIT) is gasping for breath to survive whilst its numerous customers are also up-in-arms over the company’s inability to pay dividends that have accrued on their investment, as well as those who want to withdraw their entire investment.
It has been story after another, as many of their customers put it.
Since September 2021, after Isaac Charles Acquah took charge as the Managing Director (MD) of the company, insiders say payment of dividends has been the major headache of the national asset with customers complaining that NTHC has deliberately been giving excuses such as “our systems are down, we just had a new MD so you’ll have to wait for some time,” anytime they put in letters to claim their monies.
“My investment is for 91 days and normally; a week or two to the maturity stage you are supposed to inform the company about your intention to withdraw some of your dividends or they automatically role it over. So, last year July, I put in my claim for my dividends and I was informed there was a problem so I would hear from them in three months’ time. The three months came they still told me they had a problem so I should come in three months again,” a distraught customer who has been frequenting the company over her investment told this paper.
Grace Baayare (not her real name) is not the only person agonising at home while her money is stuck away with an investment company that is supposed to be cushioning her in her time of distress. Another old man was seen exactly a week today screaming down NTHC’s Ringway head office and accusing the company of refusing to pay him after tossing him for many months.
It was startling as much as it was stunning last Friday when the New Crusading GUIDE team visited the NTHC office at Osu, in Accra, unannounced, to observe goings-on in the company.
One woman disclosed that she had challenges and needed some money to add up to her money to pay her rent but they never gave her, claiming that she did not put in her request on time.
Another lady, about 24- years-old also said she was a business woman who sold shoes and all kinds of bags and clothes but started having challenges during the covid era so, in July 2021, she went to make a request to redraw some money to revive her business but it has been almost one year now and anytime she goes to check on her request they tell her they have not started paying yet, quizzing, “Why should they decide whether to pay me or not my own money I suffered to make and have invested it with them?”
“I am a young girl working hard to make ends meet, am not just sleeping at home and blaming government that there is no job and am doing my business to survive too you want to collapse my business for me” adding that anytime I come here to check on my request they would write a telephone number on a piece of paper and give to call, I would call several times but they wouldn’t answer,” she alleged.
Meanwhile, all the telephone numbers of NTHC are not going through as calls to their office lines have not been answered last Monday. Officials of the company were also tight-lipped and were not ready to talk to the New Crusading GUIDE.
Stay tuned for more.
