Please help those desperately in need
Being a small depositor who has lost all my hard earned savings, I now plead that the small time depositors (below Rs. 3 million) who comprise 76 per cent of the total depositors (6,924 of 9,162) be given a desperately needed respite. For more than four years now, we have been without funds to live with dignity whilst those who have perpetrated this fraud are living in the lap of luxury.
Most of us are retired and therefore have no recourse to employment as an alternate means of income and these monies invested in Golden Key (GK) were our hard earned money and meagre savings. As depositors over the age of 60, please heed our pleas and return to us – our dignity. We were respectable average middle class citizens of this country, and not the paupers we are now! With the current ‘Repayment Plan’ accepted by the Supreme Court, depositors are losing a massive 59 per cent across the board on account of a so-called ‘Rebate’. We did not give the Ceylinco Group a loan – it was an investment where we derived a monthly interest to help us live. If these monies are now deducted, it is a violation of natural justice and our fundamental rights because those who withdrew their massive deposits just prior to the collapse of Golden Key, did not forego the interest they earned!! They received 100 per cent of their deposit. May I also mention that 53 per cent of depositors have deposited their monies prior to 2005. I can understand that there are currently insufficient funds to pay us all and I humbly suggest that whatever funds are currently available are paid to the depositors and future assets taken over by the Task Force are also paid to the depositors on a pro-rata basis. Please do not shut the door in our faces – give us the hope we desperately need. The assets are there, locally as well as overseas (as exposed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The Task Force is competent enough and has the necessary resources to recover these assets.
Even though the small time depositors (below Rs. 3 million) comprise 76 per cent of the depositor base, there is no one representing our interests in either the board appointed by the Central Bank or the self-appointed Monitoring Committee approved by the Supreme Court. All office bearers of the two associations are people who have deposited more than Rs. 10 million.
I now ask that these shortcomings are urgently rectified so that we can be given the desperately needed respite.
Desperate GK small depositor
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