General Manager of the Naara Rural Bank, Samuel Namoog, is urging government to channel funds meant for flagship programs through rural banks.
He believes this will help boost their operations, especially where the programs are situated in their areas of operation. The rural banking institutions would be strengthened as a by-product of the social intervention program.
Mr Namoog made the call when he addressed shareholders of the Bank during its 27th Annual General Meeting at Paga in the Upper East Region.
He stated that Rural Banks, especially Naara would achieve their core mandate of serving rural communities interests if government considered the proposal and redirected the funds, especially the Assemblies Common Funds through them.
Some of the Shareholders the Ghana News Agency spoke to, affirmed the GM’s call and referred to some disbursements including the Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) as areas that could be mechanised through the Bank to check misappropriation and misapplication of these funds.
Mr Namoog justified the need for the proposal stating that the Bank had instituted pro-poor products designed to promote growth in communities including its Credit with Education (CWE), where customers were granted loans and educated on their business areas in order to maximize profits.
He said other products of the Bank were; Susu collections with loan packages, where customers made daily contributions and had access to loans, as well as Child Educational Trust Account, which enabled customers to save towards their children’s education in future.
While calling on the public to patronize their products, the GM used the opportunity to appeal to loan defaulters, especially shareholders of the Bank to endeavour to settle their indebtedness to enable others also benefit from the facility.
Kwaku Anangah, Chairman of the Board of Directors, in his report for 2016, said loans and advances increased by 5.9 percent from December 2015 to December 2016, adding that the Bank had a total loan balance of GHC 14,788,184 representing 50.1 percent of its total assets of GHC29, 540,303.
He said loans recovery and advances improved considerably during the period under review and indicated that it was as a result of intensive efforts by the Board, management and staff of the Bank through persistent visits to defaulters.
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