Navrongo (Northern Region) - The Bank of Ghana has expressed concern over the current situation where there is too much liquid cash in the hands of the public. To help reduce the trend the Bank of Ghana has appealed to rural banks to educate the public on the need to use cheques in transacting their business and other day to day operations.

Kwame B. Letsa, Deputy Chief Manager, Banking Supervision Department, Bank of Ghana expressed this concern during the 12th annual general meeting of NAARA Rural Bank Limited at Navrongo.

He said in fulfilment of the bank’s mission to reduce poverty, it granted credit facilities to hundreds of farmers and women’s groups, and other income generating activities, with funds from the District Assembly’s Poverty Reduction Fund and the NGOs FELIX Foundation, IUIDEP and OXFARM among others.

He seized the opportunity to appeal to members of the public to handle currency especially the new currency notes to be introduced with care. The banking supervisor observed that rural banks managers often show a lot of zeal when granting loans, but display lack of commitment when these same loans are to be recovered.

Jonathan A. Angme, chairman of the Bank’s Board of Director in his report said the bank made a net profit of ?211,812,927m in 2001 as against ?114,156,157m in 2000 representing 100 per cent profit while its deposits shot up from ?336,124,727m in 1998 to ?1.568bn in the year 2001.