Rural bank makes headway

Nankese (Eastern Region) 23 Feb. '99

The Nankese South Akim Rural Bank has increased its total deposits from 1.7 billion cedis from December 1997 to 2.7 billion cedis, as at December 1998. Opanyin Kwasi Gyasi, the chairman of the board of directors of the bank, told the 13th annual general meeting of the bank at Nankese that its investments in treasury bills and government bonds had also increased from 762 million cedis to 1.2 billion cedis over the same period.

The bank, which made a net profit of 36.1 million cedis, granted loans totalling 1.3 billion cedis. The bank has also acquired computers and money counting machines and retrained its staff in modern banking operations as part of its modernisation programme. Opanyin Gyasi said the bank had supported the electrification project and primary health care centre of Nankese and donated a generator to the Suhum government hospital and books to the Suhum Technical and Presbyterian Secondary Schools.

The bank plans to support the people of Nankese to establish a senior secondary school and offer financial assistance to poor students in second-cycle schools. Opanyin Gyasi disclosed that the bank purchased 2.2 billion cedis worth of Akuafo cheques in the last cocoa purchasing season and was also working with the Suhum/Kraboa/Coaltar and West Akim District assemblies to disburse their poverty alleviation funding.