Kintampo (Brong Ahafo)
01 October 2002 - Bank of Ghana has urged managements of rural banks not only
to be concerned about making profits but also to ensure that their collective
activities brought about social development of the rural communities.
For the achievement of
this goal, the Central Bank has called for a well-composed and capable
management that would ensure that adequate policies, practices, and procedures
are established and complied with.
Mr Joseph B. Clottey,
Head of the Banking Supervision Department of Bank of Ghana made the call at the
17th annual general meeting of shareholders of Kintampo Rural Bank at the
weekend.
He said the Rural
Banks should also ensure that appropriate information systems were established,
statutory and regulatory directives regarding solvency and liquidity were
observed as well as the adequate protection of the interest of shareholders and
depositors.
It is in this light
that the Bank of Ghana has been placing emphasis on the inclusion of
accountants, economists, bankers and other seasoned professionals on the Boards
of Rural Banks and the recruitment of experienced persons to occupy management
positions, Mr Clottey said.
He emphasised that
"such calibre of board and management would be well disposed to
efficiently address the merging challenges on the banking scene."
Mr Clottey said the
role of management should however be complemented by well-trained, motivated,
loyal and responsible staff. "The level of competition in the banking
industry requires competent and well-trained staff to assist the board and management
to effectively exploit all the opportunities in the market to enhance
profitability and growth."
He commended the
board, management, shareholders, and staff of the Kintampo Rural Bank for their
hard work, honesty and dedication. Mr Clottey noted that their efforts had
contributed to the tremendous and sustained growth and development of the Bank
as records at the Bank of Ghana showed.
The total assets of
the Bank during the first half of the year expanded by 22.7 per cent to 7,271.3
million cedis while short-term investments rose by 1.3 per cent to 2,580.1
million cedis. He said the Bank's gross loans increased by 41.1 per cent to
3,079.5 million cedis while deposits surged up by 1,091.3 million cedis (29.5
per cent) to 4,792.6 million cedis.
Mr Clottey urged rural
banks to take concerns raised by external auditors and Bank of Ghana in their
examination reports and surveillance activities seriously and implement all the
recommendations made promptly.
"Effective
implementation of these recommendations addresses lapses and shortcomings to
improve on performance," he said. The Head of Supervision gave the
assurance that the Central Bank would, on its part continue to adopt policies
and implement programmes aimed at restructuring the institutional framework,
promoting human resource capacity building and sourcing of on-lending
facilities to strengthen the working capital base of rural banks.
He said the Bank would
also ensure the development and growth of efficient Rural/Community Banks as
integral part of a vibrant banking system for sustainable economic development
for an improvement in the living standards of people in the rural communities.
Mr Kwaku Poku,
Chairman of the Bank's Board of Directors, said it recorded a pre-tax profit of
998.3 million cedis last year compared to 434.7 million cedis in 2000.
On the Bank's Group
Micro-Credit Scheme for Women in the area started in October 2001, the Board
Chairman said by December 31, that year the number of clients had increased to
348 with savings of 11.9 million cedis.
The scheme is expected
to cover about 3,200 clients by the end of this month, he said and expressed
the hope that the scheme would grow to become one of the Bank's sources of
income and help to improve the economic situation of women in the district.
GRi…/
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Tema (Greater Accra)
01 October 2002-Vessels carrying cargo originally scheduled for the landlocked
countries have been compelled by the on-going mutiny in Cote d'Ivoire to
discharge at the Tema port.
The situation is
gradually putting pressure at the berthing points at the port, Mr Cletus
Kuzagbe, Operations Manager of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA)
told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Monday after a visit to the port
that showed increase in traffic.
At the moment, he
said, the GPHA is capable of handling the situation but should the situation
become unbearable for the Tema port alone to handle, the sister port at
Takoradi may be asked to assist to ease the pressure.
He however, stated
that they had been anticipating the situation because, since the mutiny started
in that country representatives of the Shippers Council for the various
landlocked countries had informed the GPHA to expert diverted vessels carrying
cargo for those countries.
So far, the MV IST, a
vessel from the Far East, which was scheduled to discharge rice for Mali and
Niger through the Cote d'Ivoire discharged 6,000 tonnes of rice for Ghana and
was compelled to discharge the remaining 13,000 tonnes at the Port.
Another vessel, MV
Blanden Delmas, detailed for Burkina Faso is also discharging 2,500 tonnes of
flour Two other vessels, MV Rays and MV Tina Two, carrying 10,500 tonnes and
5,000 tonnes of rice respectively, which were originally at anchorage at
Abidjan waters diverted their routes and are waiting at the anchorage at Tema
to berth at the port to discharge for Mali and Niger.
He said GPHA is
carrying out these jobs in addition to its normal vessel calls at the port. Mr
Kuzagbe therefore, advised owners of the diverted cargoes to provide trucks to
deliver the goods directly when they are being discharged from the port to the
various destinations.
In view of the mutiny,
the trucks would be compelled to go through Ghana and that would prolong the
journey instead of the short cut through Abidjan.
GRi…/
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Accra (Greater Accra)
01 October 2002- Share prices of three equities rallied at Monday's trading to
push the All-Share Index up by 2.16 points in a dull market.
Although the market
index rose from 1,308.51 points to 1,310.67 points to open the week trading,
traded shares continued their downward slide. Total shares traded dropped from
55,700 shares last Friday to as low as 25,300 on Monday. Guinness Ghana Limited
(GGL) sold the highest shares of 20,200.
The change in the year
to date was at 37.11 per cent. Market capitalisation rose from 4,857.18 billion
cedis on Friday to 4,861.38 billion cedis.
All the three price
changes were positive. Fanmilk Limited gained the highest of 24 cedis at 1,651
cedis. Unilever and Ghana Commercial Bank gained 17 cedis and 14 cedis to close
at 4,260 and 3,370 cedis respectively.
The following are the
last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL
380
AGC 18,807
ALW 4,000
BAT 953
CFAO 67
EIC
4,520
FML
1,651 +24
GBL 900
GCB 3,370 +14
GGL 912
HFC 955
MGL 254
MLC 262
MOGL
19,720
PAF 750
PBC 400
PZ 1,850
SCB 26,023
SPPC 387
SSB 3,901
SWL 285
UNIL 4,260 +17
CMLT 460
GRi…/
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Accra (Greater Accra)
01 October 2002- African countries have been urged to wake up to the realities
of their underdevelopment and find a workable framework of recovery in view of
the increasing spate of globalisation, declining foreign assistance and foreign
direct investment and the marginalisation of the continent in world trade.
Africa accounts for
less than two per cent of total world trade; 52 out of the 73 countries listed
in the low human development category are in Africa; and over six million
refugees and about 120 million illiterates are found on the continent and has
the highest infant mortality rate in the world.
Mr Alfred Salliah
Fawundu, UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana, said this in a speech at the
opening of a three-day Sub-Regional Conference for West African Parliaments in
Accra on Monday.
The Conference on the
theme: "The Role of Parliament in Relation to NEPAD, Sustainable
Development and HIV/AIDS." Parliamentarians from the 15 ECOWAS and
European, experts from the West African Sub-Region and representatives from
UNICEF and UNDP are attending the conference.
The agenda covers the
main issues in contemporary African development, which are the main concerns of
the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and aims at formulating a
"parliamentary response" to the NEPAD initiative in the format of a
parliamentary action plan on the main issues.
Mr Fawundu said it was
heart warming that a new generation of African Leaders have decided to live up
to their responsibilities and demonstrate leadership by fashioning out the
NEPAD as the way forward to rescue the continent from its predicament.
"NEPAD is a bold
initiative to have an integrated and comprehensive framework for Africa's
development. It is designed and managed by African leaders themselves and
premised on home-grown programmes."
Mr Fawundu said in
designing a solution to the diagnostic assessment, NEPAD sets out a broad
vision of the continent's future and outlines a strategy for achieving that
vision. He said, "NEPAD argues that for socio-economic development to be
realised there must prevail peace, security, democracy and good political
governance, improved economic and corporate governance and regional co-operation
and integration."
"NEPAD also
provides a developmental framework guided by principles of sound economic
policies and management as well as for transparent, accountable and democratic
governance," he said.
Mr Fawundu said,
"the UN and UNDP share NEPAD's vision and are working to ensure that it
succeeds and that the UN General Assembly at its plenary session adopted a
resolution to support NEPAD while all UN agencies are now committed to support
NEPAD".
He said
"sustainable development is simply not possible without sound,
transparent, democratically accountable institutions, stretching from local to
national level, capable of protecting the environment while providing critical
services such as security, clean water, justice and economic opportunity for the
poor."
UNDP has launched a
series of concrete initiatives all built around partnership with civil society,
the private sector, bilateral and others to catalyse the broad action around
five priority areas of water, energy, health, agriculture and bio-diversity.
Mr Fawundu said the
UNDP was, therefore, providing integrated approaches to sustainable development
that cut across democratic governance, poverty reduction, HIV/AIDS prevention,
environment and energy, information and communication technologies and crisis
prevention and recovery.
He said, however, that
the success of the NEPAD would depend on how African governments and leaders
showed commitment and zeal in implementing its principles adding that
Parliaments in the Sub-Region have a crucial role to play for its success.
Dr Joel N. Scholten,
President of the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA),
called for the active participation of leading personalities of the ECOWAS
Parliament in fashioning out a sustainable socio-economic programme to the
benefit of the Sub-Region.
He said there was the
need for joint efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS menace on the continent since the
pandemic was now moving from a personal and family crisis to that of social and
economic and potentially societal.
Mr Peter Ala Adjetey,
Speaker of Parliament of Ghana, who chaired the conference, said it was
regrettable that Africans seemed not to move forward but always backwards at
their own detriment. He said the challenge facing the implementation of NEPAD
to respond to the various inadequacies was enormous and all must ensure that
this time round it did not fail since it was "home grown'.
GRi…/
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