Accra (Greater Accra) 08 March 2002 - An appeal has been made to the government to prevail on the Bank of Ghana to urgently consider the establishment of Rural Banks in the District capitals to boost economic activities of the people. Mr Cletus Apul Avoka, NDC- Bawku West, said this when contributing to the debate on the approval of the financial policy of the government in Parliament.
He said since the government had pledged to support its planned "Golden Age of Business" and private sector development, there was the need for every assistance to be given to local entrepreneurs and small-scale financiers the opportunity to transact their business with the necessary financial support at their door step.
Mr Avoka said people living in communities without banking facilities faced a lot of problems including travelling long distances to transact banking business and the threat of their monies being lost to robbers.
He urged the Bank of Ghana to liberalise and reduce its threshold of 500 million cedis to the former figure of 200 million cedis as the contributions of communities for the establishment of rural banks since most communities were unable to readily contribute that amount.
Mr Avoka said there was the need for political will and courage to salvage the timber industry from the present mess it had been enmeshed and called on the government to ban the export of lumber since it had no added value, cuts down job opportunities and an economic waste to the country.
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