Kofiase Rural Bank records profit

The Otuasekan Rural Bank at Kofiase in the Sekyere West District, recorded a profit of 258 million cedis before tax in 2001 as against 70 million cedis recorded in 2000.

The bank also increased its total assets by 33 percent, from 4.7 billion cedis to 6.9 billion cedis in the year under review.

Mr. Baffour Kyei Amoah, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank, announced this at the 13th Annual General Meeting of the bank, at Kofiase on Friday.

He said the bank increased its deposits from 3.6 billion cedis to 5.7 billion cedis, while ordinary share capital also rose from 36.1 million cedis to 125 million cedis, which surpassed the Bank of Ghana?s requirement of 100 million cedis of share holdings in rural banks.

Mr Amoah said as part of its social responsibilities, the bank had earmarked an amount of five million cedis to be disbursed to six brilliant but needy students in its catchment areas to support them in their education.

He said the bank also supported a number of institutions. These included the Ejura Government hospital, Kofiase community and St Jerome Secondary School at Abofour.

Mr. Amoah expressed concern about low savings and poor loan recovery from customers and urged the shareholders who applied for loans to repay them to enable others to benefit.

Mr. Eric Osei Bonsu, Director of the Association of Rural Banks, urged the Board of Directors of the bank to ensure transparency and harmony in their dealings with shareholders and staff of the bank.

He also advised them to establish good relationships with district assemblies and follow the bank of Ghana?s regulations in the disbursement of the government?s poverty intervention funds.

Mr Osei Bonsu congratulated the bank for the successes achieved and urged shareholders to increase their holdings.

Mr Ken Owusu-Twumasi, Head, Human Resource and Administration of the ARB Apex Bank, said the bank had initiated a number of programmes to assist rural banks to improve on their services.

These include cheque clearing, domestic funds transfer, publicity and image building and the computerisation of all rural banks to the Apex Bank to make it easier for customers to access their money at any part of the country.

Mr Owusu-Twumasi called on the rural banks to embark on continued training for their personnel to improve their efficiency.