Our attention has been drawn to factual inaccuracies contained on page 3 of the Thursday, November 10, 2022 edition of The Chronicle, with same caption on the front page of the paper. We had claimed in that publication that EDC Investment Limited, was a product of Ecobank Ghana, and that customers were up in arms over what they see as “open robbery” by the bank.
We further alleged that “Ecobank Ghana clients who invested in EDC Ghana have either lost their interests or a portion of their principal”. We proceeded to publish a voice note sent to us, by an unknown person, alongside quotes from social media handles of persons we do not know, but who had claimed to be aggrieved customers of the bank, without any verifications.
We have since come to know, upon prompting by the management of the bank that EDC Investment Limited is a subsidiary (not a product, as per our publication) of Ecobank and part of the Ecobank Group, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while Ecobank Ghana is a registered universal bank licensed and regulated by the Bank of Ghana (BOG). The latter is regulated also by both the SEC and the Ghana Stock Exchange, by virtue of it being a publicly listed bank. Having sighted the SEC notice to the investing public, we should have broadened the story as an industry-wide issue and refrained from treating it as if it was the doing of the EDC.
Our attempt at rectifying the issue in the Friday, November 11, 2022 edition of the paper also unfortunately went bad, making the investing public doubt the legitimacy of EDC, as a subsidiary of Ecobank.
We hereby wish to retract these portions of our publication and unreservedly apologise to shareholders, management, staff and customers of the bank and the EDC. We regret any inconveniences that our publication may have caused them.
