Sunyani, Aug. 6 GNA - Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Brong Ahafo Regional Minister has advised managements and boards of rural and community banks to ensure stringent internal control mechanisms for the safety of public funds lodged with them.

He stressed that rural and community banks had performed creditably over the past 30 years and the government having identified this had resolved that a sizeable amount of the Millennium Challenge Account would be channelled through some of them.

The Regional Minister however, cautioned that the continuous channelling or otherwise of future funds would depend partly on how well the previous ones would be utilised.

Mr Baffour-Awuah was speaking in Sunyani at the maiden launch of Rural Banking Hour Programme of the Brong Ahafo Chapter of the Association of Rural Banks.

The Association seeks to educate the general public, through the medium of radio, about the operations and products of the 18 rural banks in the region.

The Regional Minister stated that the government was determined to reduce poverty, create wealth and raise the living standards of Ghanaians, especially those living in the rural areas and had identified rural banks as strategic partners in achieving these goals.

Mr. Baffour-Awuah, himself a banker, noted that the competition in the banking industry over the past few years posed great challenges to operators in the industry in view of the government's Golden Age of Business policy.

To survive the competition, he said, demands that banking operators study and analyse the trend of the economy and come out with strategies that can stand the test of time.

The Regional Minister considered the 26 per cent interest rate charged by most rural banks on loans to be on the higher side and appealed to the boards for a review since it was expensive for the people in the rural areas, where poverty is endemic, to repay loans granted them.

Mr Baffour-Awuah commended the Association for conceiving the programme to market its products to the general public and urged it to come out with more of such laudable products to assist the government in reducing poverty among people in rural areas.

Mr Yaw Peprah, President of the Association gave assurance that the banks were determined to match up with current challenges in the industry.