Adonten Community Bank declares highest profit ever
The Adonten Community Bank made a net profit of GH¢75,943 last year, the highest profit made so far by the bank.
This was announced by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr Emmanuel Appiah Korang, at the 11th Annual General Meeting of the Bank at New Tafo, at the weekend.
He explained that, the profit made was an increase of 267 per cent over the profit of GH¢20, 685 in 2007.
Mr Korang thanked the new management and staff of the bank for their performance and explained that the major challenge facing the bank was the low repayment level of loans and overdraft.
He warned that the bank would be forced to take legal measures to retrieve the loans and called for the cooperation of the shareholders in this regard.
He said the bank could, however, not declare dividend because of the new Bank of Ghana directive to community and rural banks to raise their share capital to GHC150,000 before declaring dividend and said the board of directors had recommended that over GHC80,000 income surplus be moved to stated capital.
Mr Kenneth Owusu-Twumasi, Head of Professional Development and Training of the APEX Bank, called on the directors of the bank to consider the payment of dividends to the shareholders when the bank makes profit.
Mr Owusu-Twumasi, a speech read for him, appealed to the shareholders and other stakeholders of the bank to support the bank to fight the growing electronic fraud which is targeting the banks, especially the rural and community banks.
The Vice-President of the Eastern Regional Branch of the Association of Rural Banks, the Reverend Divine Nartey, appealed to the shareholders to increase their deposits to help the bank to raise the needed capital to increase its profit base.
The East Akim Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Simon Asirifi, congratulated the staff and management of the bank for their performance and urged them to maintain their performance to encourage the Assembly to recommend them to their development partners.
Source: GNA
MMDAs urged to involve grassroots in their budgetary process
Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), have been urged to create more room for people at the grassroots level to participate in their budgetary process.
The District Budget Analyst of the Kassena-Nankana District in the Upper East Region, Mr Amadu Abubakari said this at Navrongo in the Upper East Region at a forum on “MMDAs Budgeting”.
He expressed dissatisfaction about the low representation of community members in the budgetary process of the assemblies and said in some instances they were not invited at all.
Mr Abubakari said failure to invite the public and for that matter the people at the grassroots, was against the decentralization regulations of the assemblies.
He noted that community members owned the budget since it was the means through developmental projects were carried.
Mr Abubakari said many projects that were constructed by most Assemblies without involving the communities were either not in use or under utilized.
He said communities could contribute to the Mid Year Review of Annual Action Plan and Budgeting, Fee Fixing Resolution, Preparation of Community Area Plan, Public Hearing of District Assemblies’ Plans and Budget.
“Assembly members alone do not truly reflect the representation of the needs and demands of the people. The views and suggestions of community members should also be given priority”, he added.
He said that the Assembly stood a better chance of getting a good budget drawn up that could optimize the use of human resources, material and financial resources for economic growth, wealth creation and poverty reduction if they encouraged community members to actively participate.
The forum was sponsored by Ibis West Africa and facilitated by Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa (GrassRoots Africa), a Non Governmental Organization working in the Upper East Region to promote grassroots participation in decision making and to empower the marginalized in Society.
Source: GNA