Akuma (B/A) Aug. 29, GNA - Nkoranza Kwabre Rural Bank in the Brong Ahafo Region realized a profit of 126 million cedis in 2004, as against 104 million cedis in 2003.
Mr. Joseph Tachie-Djan, Chairman of the Interim Management Committee and Board of Directors of the bank announced this at the 21st Annual General Meeting of shareholders of the Bank at Akuma. He said the bank's total deposits increased from 5.6 billion cedis to 6.6 billion cedis, while investments also upped from 1.96 billion cedis to 3.1 billion cedis within the period.
"The Bank gave 3.9 billion cedis out as loans and advances to support clients in their socio-economic activities", he added. Mr. Tachie-Djan said the loans were disbursed in agriculture, agro-processing, trading, micro credit schemes, Susu and salary advance for workers.
He said the bank's ordinary shares amounted to 61.6 billion cedis, had fixed assets valued at 438 million cedis, with a staff of 37.
Mr. James Kwabena Appiah-Awuah, Nkoranza District Chief Executive commended the shareholders for establishing the bank and patronizing it for 21 years.
He also commended the management and staff for their hard work and efforts towards the improvement in the bank's operations. Mr Appiah-Awuah however, asked them to ensure transparency to maintain the trust and confidence their customers had reposed in them. The DCE called on the Managements of the two rural banks in the area, Nkoranza-Kwabre and Nkoranza-Fiagya, to institute scholarship schemes to support brilliant but needy students within their areas of operations.
Mr. Appiah-Awuah announced that the Government had provided about 400 billion cedis to support the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the district and called on the people to register and patronize the Scheme to enable them enjoy efficient and effective health care.
Mr. Emmanuel Kwasi Kwapong, Managing Director of ARB Apex Bank Limited in a speech read for him described rural banks as community based financial institutions and the properties of the people. He asked the people to patronize the bank to improve on their living standards and advised managements of rural banks to establish internal audit units for the effective supervision in the implementation of financial control systems and to check embezzlement.
Mr. Kwapong said Apex Bank had embarked on the computerization of rural banks and a uniform, tried and tested banking application software 'e-merge' had been acquired for installation in all the banks to enhance information processing and compilation of data.