SPEED UP PROBE INTO AHANTAMAN RURAL BANK FRAUD …Shareholders appeal to BoG
By Alfred Adams, Takoradi
Email:kankiilu@yahoo.com
Shareholders of the Ahantaman Rural Bank (ARB), located at Agona Nkwanta in the Western Region, have appealed to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to speed up its investigation into the circumstances under which the bank lost a whopping sum of three billion cedis in a controversial loan agreement.
The BoG last three months ago launched an investigation to unravel the mysterious circumstances under which the rural bank lost a whopping sum, and also the bank’s decision to flout the BoG regulations not to engage in foreign transaction.
In the said transaction, ARB Board travelled to China to import vehicles and domestic appliances, in defiance of the Banking Act which frowns on rural banks engaging in foreign transaction.
An Assistant Director of the Bank, Mr. Raymond Amanful, who announced the decision of the BoG to investigate the rural bank’s defiance on the banking act, also suspended the tenure of office of the current Board members until an Emergency Shareholders’ Meeting was held.
However, even before the Central Bank could present its report, a group of shareholders had petitioned the banking industry regulator to alert it that a delay in the latter’s decision to hold an Emergency Extra-Ordinary Shareholders’ Meeting could collapse the Ahantaman Rural Bank.
In the petition signed by Mr. Ebenezer Coleman and Henry Ansah, shareholders of the rural bank, they posited that the current Board was not properly constituted and two of the retired Board members continue to attend Board Meetings in defiance of the Central Bank directive.
The petitioned continued that the said Board Members were also engage in activities which was contrary to the banking Act of 2004 (Act 673), and the earlier the BoG holds the Emergency Shareholders Meeting, the better it would be for the rural bank.
Meanwhile, over three thousand flat screens and other domestic appliances which the bank imported from China in the foreign transaction, which the shareholders spoke vehemently against, have arrived in the country.
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