Sekyere Rural Bank holds 34th AGM; climaxes 40th anniversary 

By Elizabeth PUNSU, Jamasi

The Sekyere Rural Bank PLC at Jamasi in the Sekyere South District of Ashanti Region  has  held its 34^th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. The 34^th AGM was part of the major activities of the bank to climax the 40^th anniversary.

After 40 years of impactful rural banking operations, the bank is poised to pursue strategies and programmes that would well position and drive the performance of the bank toward achievement of corporate objectives.

The Chairman of the Board Directors, Dr. Francis Denteh, in his address, emphasised that   compliance with regulations and good corporate governance practices as well as effective risk management systems and excellent customer service would continue to be given significant attention by the Board and Management.

He has also emphasised that the bank would continue to employ technologically efficient and effective systems, including digitisation, to enable it to continuously offer unequalled services to their cherished customers and shareholders.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr. Denteh, announced these and more at the bank’s 34th Annual General Meeting of shareholders and the climax of 40th anniversary celebration held last Saturday at the Assembly Hall of Adu Gyamfi Senior High at Jamasi in the Ashanti Region.

Operational environment

According to him, the Ghanaian economy, and the financial sector for that matter, was not exempted from the ripple-effects of the developments in the global economy.

The Ghana cedi suffered severe pressure and depreciated significantly against its major trading counterparts. For instance, it depreciated against the US dollar by 30 percent, having closed the year 2022 with 8.5760 from 6.0061 in December 2021.The year ended with an unprecedented inflationary rate of 54.1 percent from 12.6 percent in December 2021.

Interest rate for money market instruments, particularly the Government of Ghana Treasury bill moved up to a record high rate. The 91-day Treasury bill experienced a significant rise to 35.48 percent from 12.5 percent in 2022 whereas the 182-day Treasury bill also ended the year 2022 at 36.23 percent from 13.2 percent for the preceding year 2022.

The year closed at 36.06 percent for the 364-days bill compared with 16.46 percent in the preceding year. The monetary policy rate experienced a rise of 1250 basis points and closed the year 2022 at 27 percent from 14.5 percent in 2021.

He further mentioned that the financial industry in 2022 suffered from the implementation of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) by the Government of Ghana. Under the programme, the government made an invitation for voluntary exchange of existing bonds of about GH¢137billion local bonds for a new package of bonds with the aim of restructuring the local debt.

On the back of this, key financial performance indicators suffered a decline. Huge losses were recorded as a result of higher impairment losses on the exchanged bonds, dipping into shareholders fund and Capital Adequacy levels, which called for the need for recapitalisation.

Operational performance

In spite of the challenging macroeconomic environment – both globally and locally – that pertained during the 2022 reviewed year, the bank pulled a satisfactory operational performance in almost all the financial indicators as indicated in the table.

Dividend

For the year 2022, the bank could not recommend the payment of dividend due to the directive from Bank of Ghana as a result of the impact of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme by the Government of Ghana. The Registrar-General issued a directive on May 9, 2023 in line with Section 73 and 74 of Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992), directing all companies to transfer unclaimed dividends to the office of the Registrar-General three months after declaration of dividends.

However, the Board of Directors wrote to the Bank of Ghana for an approval to pay dividend to shareholders, particularly because in spite of consistent registration of good profits, the bank had not been allowed by the Bank of Ghana to pay dividend. Unfortunately, however, the bank could not obtain the requested approval from the Bank of Ghana to declare and pay dividend for 2022 financial year.

This decision follows the Bank of Ghana’s directive (Notice No. BG/GOV/SEC/2021/06) to all banks in Ghana not to declare or pay dividend without their written approval.

Corporate social responsibilities

The bank continues to offer assistance to communities and institutions within its catchment areas in terms of community development projects and financial support. The major economic areas that benefitted included education, health, sports, recreation, chieftaincy and security.

40^th anniversary climax

The bank celebrated its 40^th anniversary and was climaxed at the 34^th AGM. The theme of the anniversary was Achieving Customer Excellence and Shareholders Value in the 21^st Century Banking, the Role of Sekyere Rural Bank Plc.

The bank, over the last forty (40) years, had operated soundly. The bank had supported many individuals and corporate institutions through its loan products, safe custody for their funds, among others.

The bank has consistently supported communities in which they operate through its corporate social responsibility drive and offered employment to many people from these communities, among others.

Future outlook

The Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Michael Aidoo, in an interview, said the bank would continue to play a significant role in the government’s financial inclusion agenda and is poised to even do more as the bank has begun to leverage the digitalisation and solutions from Fintech to serve their customers better as well as improve efficiency and service delivery.

According to him, the bank would continue to strengthen its credit programme by adding other products which will benefit clients.

“In addition, the credit needs of SMEs will be seriously pursued to improve the rural banking sub-sector of the economy,” he stressed