Mfantseman Bank makes headway in loans recovery

Biriwa (C/R), Sept. 22, GNA - The Mfantseman Community Bank, with its headquarters at Biriwa in the Central Region, has collected 421,396,625 cedis being overdue loans within four months. Mr M.B. Kayang, Manager, told Ghana News Agency at Biriwa on Tuesday that the amount, which formed 22.2 per cent of the total loans over-due was collected from May to August 2004.

Mr Kayang said as at 1st May 2004 total over-due loans stood at 1.9 billion cedis, which constituted 95.2 per cent of the entire loan portfolio of the bank.

He expressed gratitude to Bank of Ghana for leading the bank through a restructuring exercise, which involved the dissolution of the former board and institution of an interim management committee (IMC) to save it from near collapse.

The manager noted that the dividends being reaped from the restructuring exercise had enabled the bank to resume its micro-lending and said as at August 31 a total of 489 million cedis had been disbursed to 219 clients, mostly fishmongers who needed help to boost their trading businesses during the fishing season.

He said seven women's groups made up of 400 members were being prepared for the next disbursement and added that the bank's catchment area had been zoned and some officials assigned to oversee their client's training, loan disbursement, monitoring and repayment.

Mr Kayang announced plans to hold an emergency general meeting of the shareholders on September 25, 2004 to enable them to map-out a strategy for recovering the remaining over-due loans and also to move the bank forward.