The Bank of Ghana (BOG), as part of its on-going activities to inject sanity and seriousness into the banking sector, is to close down all non- performing banks.

In line with the new measures two commercial banks namely, the Bank for Housing and Construction (BHC) and Ghana Co-operatives Bank (GCB) have been closed down. Mr. Asiedu Mante Deputy Supervising Director of BOG in charge of Rural Banks disclosed this at the 9th annual general meeting of the Amansie West Rural Bank at Antoakrom near Kumasi. Mr. Mante added that 23 of the 103 rural banks in the country have also been closed down and two more are to be closed down in due course.

He lamented on the high number of rural banks in the country and said the BOG will not support any distressed financial institution. It has however become an undisputed fact that many of the rural banks collapsed as a result of mismanagement by some managers and board of directors assigned to run the banks.

In an advice to the bank Mr. Mante urged the board of the bank to work towards improving the operations of the bank to ensure its success so as to attract more patronage from the public.

Giving an overview of the performance of the bank, the chairman of the Board of Directors, Capt. S. Kyeremanteng (rtd.) said a deposit of over 2.7 billion cedis was realised for the year 1999 as against 2.4 billion cedis in 1998.

In the area of investment, the bank purchased Treasury Bills to the tune of over one billion cedis in 1999 as against 835 million cedis for the previous year showing an increase of 100% with short-term credit facilities granted to various categories of workers.

As part of the Social Services, Capt Kyeremanteng disclosed that the bank is to provide electricity to communities that will erect their poles and special package to world war veterans.