Customers of Asuopra Rural Bank appeal to president Mills

After several attempts at getting the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to save them from the risk of losing their savings at the Asuopra Rural Bank, in the New Abirem District of the Eastern Region, customers of the bank have now turned to President Mills as their last hope.

The customers, who have not been able to access their own money at the bank for over two years now, have made several contacts with the Apex Bank at Koforidua without success. They have also contacted the Serious Fraud Office, now Economic and Organized Crime Office for action, all to no avail.

Fearing that their monies may go down the drain forever, and apparently having lost confidence in BoG, they have come together to petition president Mills as their last resort, hoping that his intervention would salvage the situation. The Asuopra Rural Bank, for some two years now, has failed to give back customers’ monies to them as it appears to be heading for bankruptcy. Customers who used to throng their premises are wondering what has happened to a bank that is keeping their life-time savings, and are pointing accusing fingers at BoG, the supervising bank of all banks in the country.

The bank’s staff has been reduced to a skeletal number of some six men who give it a semblance of life even though nothing is going on there. The staff’s duty now is to ‘attend’ to customers who come around to enquire about any developments. They also go round to collect loans owed to the bank and use them as their salary.

We reproduce below the letter to President Mills.

Your Excellency,

APPEAL FOR INTERVENTION FROM CUSTOMERS OF ASUOPRA RURAL BANK

New Year’s greetings to you and your team of hardworking officials. We, the undersigned customers of the Asuopra Rural Bank, situated at Afosu, Nkwaten, New Abirem and Noyem, do hereby appeal to you as follows; ? We are customers of the said Bank, who have been deprived of access to their own monies saved with the bank for over two years now.

? Managers of the bank have failed to give us a good reason for their failure to give our monies back to us.

? We have observed that the Bank’s operations have virtually grounded to a halt, with its staff reducing to a very small number.

? Series of publications in the media on the Bank, with reference to the latest story in The Daily Democrat of Monday, 17th January, 2011, captioned; "BANK OF GHANA STANDS ACCUSED – AS CUSTOMERS OF ASUOPRA RURAL BANK RISK LOSING MILLIONS IN SAVINGS", gives us cause for alarm and to fear that if nothing is done in the immediate, we risk losing our hard-earned savings/monies amounting to millions of Ghana Cedis.

? This would lead to a serious crisis that would affect us, our children and many others. At the moment some of us have withdrawn our children from school, others have stopped farming for lack of capital; there are also some of us who have become destitute because our business capital is locked up in the bank.

Your Excellency,

? We are, therefore, appealing to your highly esteemed office to intervene to save us from a serious financial crisis which has already hit us and has more destructive consequences ahead. ? After several attempts at getting the management of the Bank to salvage the situation, we have become convinced that your intervention remains the only hope for us now. ? We have also contacted the Rural Bank Division of the Bank of Ghana on phone, as well as, Apex, Koforidua and Serious Fraud Office (now Economic and Organized Crime Office) on many occasions but no result has come out of that. ? With your declaration of 2011 as an Action Year, we are confident you would take an action on this our precarious situation, as you have done on several occasions, to save us. Your Excellency, We look up for your mercies. May the Good Lord bless you in your pursuit of a Better Ghana for all Ghanaians. Your Subjects

(signed) (signed) Prince Adinyira George Ayensu (Leader of Affected Customers) (Deputy Leader) 0243805979 CC 1. Bank of Ghana 2. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning 3. Media