Akrofuom (Ash), Feb 24, GNA - The ARB Apex Bank has commended the Akrofuom Area Rural Bank in the Adansi South District for posting a profit before tax of 131.2 million cedis within a relatively short period of two years.

The bank went into distress and was resuscitated in October 2002 with the Bank of Ghana instituting an interim management committee (IMC) to oversee its operations.

Mr George Agyekum Nana Donkor, Company Secretary of ARB Apex Bank gave the commendation at the 12th annual general meeting of the bank at Akrofuom on Saturday.

"On behalf of the managing director and the entire management and staff of the ARB Apex Bank, I wish to congratulate you for your impressive performance."

The meeting was called to enable the IMC to give account of its stewardship for year 2002 and 2003 to the shareholders.

Mr Donkor said "your profit before tax of 131.2 million cedis as against 2002's profit of 74.1 million cedis is indeed gratifying. ''During the period your total deposit amounted to 64 million cedis depicting a good performance on the previous year's figure of 54 million cedis".

"There is a lot of room for improvement to make your bank stronger in this competitive dispensation", he said.

Mr. K Appiah Pinkrah, the chairman of the bank, said the bank's deposit base at the time they took over was 338.6 million cedis but after two years the bank had chalked an impressive figure of 2.4 billion cedis.

He said out of the amount, 1.5 billion cedis had been invested in government treasury bills whilst 604 million cedis had gone into loans.