The Central Regional Association of Rural Banks Ladies has been inaugurated with a call on them to work extra hard to improve the rural banking industry.
Mrs Patient Antonio, the regional chairperson of the Association of Rural Banks who performed the inaugural ceremony, charged the ladies to adopt strategies to ensure the sustainability and vibrancy of the various banks in the region.
Mrs Antonio said the Ladies Association was defunct for some time, but its revival had become a vital platform for the ladies to ensure that the rural banking industry served it purpose and usefulness.
She called on all ladies in the rural banks to join to make it vibrant and urged the newly sworn-in members to adopt strategies to make sure that the Association became sustainable to push rural banks in the region forward.
The event coincided with the celebration of the Central Regional Rural Banks Association with numerous activities including talk shows on radios across the region to tell the good story of rural banking.
Other activities to climax the week-long celebration were football competition for the ladies to help them exercise, with Awutu Emesa Rural Bank Ladies lifting the trophy.
In the men’s Football, Awutu Emesa Rural Bank again, beat Nyakrom Rural Bank PLC on penalties to lift the trophy.
Mrs Antonio presented trophies to both women and men’s football teams.
She also commended a nine-member committee namely Mrs Gifty Diana Hooper Brown, Mrs Eleanor Ablorh, Mr Maxwell Mensah, Mr Emmanuel Agyenim Boateng, Mr Augustine Jirapa, Mr Edward Arkoh Donkor, Mr Dawuda Erskine and Mr Isaac Arkurst Yamoah who supervised the celebration of the Association’s week.
Mrs Antonio said the region had a unique role to play in the rural banking industry with its 49 years of experience and expressed the hope that it would create more than 2,000 jobs for young graduates by its 50th anniversary next year.
She hinted that rural banking had also given opportunity to small and medium businesses, particularly women traders to expand their businesses and trading activities to cushion them to cater for their families.
Rural banks in the region had generated many direct and indirect jobs through financing of businesses, she observed, adding that the industry had also created enabling environment for income-generating activities through micro industries and had inculcat the habit of saving in traders and drastically reduced poverty among women traders.
She emphasised that the existence of rural banking had contributed significantly to the delivery of quality health care in various remote communities in their catchment areas thereby, helping to improve the health of the people.
On investment on education, the chairperson said the banks had assisted in diverse ways at basic, secondary, and tertiary levels with infrastructure, teaching materials, scholarships and Information Communication and Technology (ICT) tools to enhance access and quality learning.
Mr Antonio said rural banks had sponsored festivals, youth programmes, sports events, communal activities, and many others in communities in their areas of operation.
However, she indicated, the challenge of many rural banks were constrained financial resources, limiting their ability to scale operations to offer competitive services to render quick and quality service.
Mrs Antonio said loan recovery remained a major issue due to weak credit assessment frameworks and limited collateral among rural borrowers.
Mrs Agnes Forson, Chairperson of Central Regional Rural Banks Ladies Association, gave the firm assurance that the executives would work assiduously to better the lot of members.
She appealed to all and sundry to rally behind the newly formed association to achieve its aims and objectives to enable the banks to continue to render quality and competitive service to the clientele in the region