Pyram Again?

Security signals have picked the presence in the country of a financial institution whose activities are akin to those of the defunct and infamous Pyram and Resource 5000 (R5) financial firms. A security source in Accra said the firm, with its base in Tema, was registered with the Registrar General's Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) as Capital Builders Network Limited (CBNET) based in Tema Community 11. Its certificate of incorporation is dated May 12, 2010. The institution operates by asking customers to register with an amount of GH¢25 or GH¢5O, after which they are provided with two coupons to be given to other potential customers who will also register as down lines within seven days. The two down lines will then be given two coupons for more potential customers in a similar manner. Where the cycle is sustained within eight weeks, the first customer of the cycle who registered with GH¢25 is expected to be paid GH¢1,275, while GH¢2,55O is paid to those who started with GH¢5O. Daily Graphic checks have revealed that failure by those down lines to sustain the cycle in seven days after registering meant a forfeiture of the initial deposit and the expected benefits. Additionally, any member of the cycle who defaulted in obtaining the two down lines, leading to a break in the cycle, loses the registration fees. Meanwhile, customers who decide to withdraw must return, within 48 hours, the two coupons that were given them to obtain the two down lines for a refund of 80 per cent of the registration fee. Flashback Pyram Business Consultancy and R5 embarked on a financial exercise in the early 1990s promising a 360 per cent annual interest on monies invested at a time when the Treasury Bill rate was 29.05 per cent per annum. The Bank of Ghana (BoG), after assessing the feasibility of their proposed businesses, however, found their venture unsustainable and directed the two institutions to cease operations. A directive by the BoG to the institutions to refund customers' savings under the scheme proved unsuccessful and led to many in Ghana losing monies worth up to billions of (old) cedis.