Govt. to pay Golden Key depositors from tomorrow

• Treasury will provide Rs. 544.3 m needed for this first tranche

​Ravi Karunanayake

As per the proposal made by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake through his interim budget, the Government is to begin the disbursement of payments to deposit holders of the defunct Golden Key Credit Card Company Ltd. from 24 July.

The Cabinet of Ministers gave approval last week for the payment schedule proposed by the Finance Minister in order to solve the longstanding issues faced by the GK depositors. Accordingly, the depositors who have had their account balance up to Rs. 2 million will be paid within one month from 24 July.

The General Treasury will provide Rs. 544.3 million needed for this first tranche and the recovery of this fund will be made through the liquidation of the assets of GK with the permission of the Supreme Court where a petition in this regard is being heard. 

The Supreme Court had earlier given a ruling to pay 41% of the account balance to the depositors. Earlier in January this year, all depositors of GK were given an interim payment up to Rs. 300,000 irrespective of their account balance

The Government has also decided to settle the dues of those who have deposits below Rs. 10 million within the next two months and those of above Rs. 10 million within one year. 

Accordingly, a further sum of over Rs. 7,000 million is needed and Minister Karunanayake has proposed that funds for these payments could be recovered from liquidation of the assets of Golden Key and the profits transferred from the Central Bank.

The new Government, in order to solve the longstanding problems that existed in the non-banking financial institutions, has stated that it would provide relief to depositors through the intervention of the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry. The Finance Minister along with the Central Bank Governor held several discussions with the depositors’ association to arrive at a possible option to resolve the issue.

“When the issue of Golden Key Credit Card depositors came up during the previous regime, the then Government did not take any meaningful measures for proper intervention to settle the issue. Instead during the height of the impeachment against the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Government manipulated the situation by making depositors stage agitations implicating the CJ in the Golden Key issues,” the Finance Ministry said, in a statement.