RURAL BANK EMBARKS ON MOBILISATION PROGRAMME (NSEMPA, PAGE 15)

By Kwame Asare Boadu, Biemso

THE Ahafo Ano Premier Rural Bank with its headquarters at Wioso in the Ahafo Ano South District of the Ashanti Region has embarked on a community sensitisation programme to educate community members in the Ahafo Ano South and North Districts on the importance of saving with the bank.
Some of the communities visited included Mpraeso No. 1 and Mpraeso No. 2, Dotiem, Achiase, Barniekrom, Ohiapae, Nufuokrom, Nyamebekyere, Nyameadom, Bronikrom, Amakom, Kwadwokrom and Biemso No. 1.
Speaking at separate meetings, the supervising manager of the bank, Mr David Nee Kwatei Nunoofio, said the community members, through their individual contributions, established the bank in 1983.
He said the bank’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Wioso last year revealed that the financial position of the bank was not encouraging.
Shareholders at the AGM, therefore, called on management to intensify their community sensitisation programme to enable more members buy shares and save with the bank.
Mr Nunoofio said the bank belonged to the communities and therefore all good citizens of the two districts should help raise the financial position of the bank.
He asked cocoa farmers in the area to cash their Akuafo Cheques at the bank to enable them benefit from loans.
On the introduction of a “susu” system, he said it would help petty traders to get loans to expand their small businesses.
Some cocoa farmers, in separate interviews complained about the refusal of cocoa purchasing clerks to issue Akuafo cheques to them to cash at the bank.
They said the purchasing clerks rather paid them cash and appealed to the government to come to their aid as the clerks were cheating them.