The Agricultural Development Bank PLC (adb Bank) intends to increase its 86-networked locations or branches nationwide to 100.
The 14 new branches will be in small towns and villages, especially in the newly-created regions by the end of the year.
This is not the first time in the last five years adb Bank is stretching its tentacles.
At its 2020 Annual General Meet (AGM) held virtually in August, the bank announced the opening of three branches at Bukom in the Greater Accra Region; Juaboso in the Western North and Kpassa in Oti, in addition to the existent 78 branches nationwide, with a promise to open five more by the end of that year to have a total of 86
Therefore, if it is now talking about 14 new branches to have a new total of 100, it means it has kept its 33rd AGM promise.
Like every business such as a company or a bank in this instance, expansion has positive implications.
Expansion means adb is doing well by way of more customers and profitability, which makes funds readily available for such a venture.
Besides, new and some current customers would have banking services on their doorstep.
Furthermore, the bank can pay dividend to the government.
Above all, the expansion will provide a number of jobs, which then helps to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.
Apart from the expansion activities, adb is also following some projects and programmes that are beneficial in their own right.
For instance, it is going to operate the ‘Entrepreneurships Building Scheme’ from this year to help groom the next generation of entrepreneurs for them to subsequently mentor others.
The adb Bank story should make the whole country happy because this was a bank heading towards bankruptcy in the few years preceding 2017, so thumbs up must be given to the new management led by Dr John Kofi Mensah and his management team the board of the bank.
Dr Mensah took office as Managing Director of adb Bank on August 1, 2017.
At that time the bank could not meet its stated capital of GHc400 million, had not paid dividends for almost a decade and posted losses two years running – 2015 to 2016.
Through prudent measures, Dr Mensah returned the bank to profitability in 2017/2018 but could not pay though due to high non-performing loans on its books and the quest for capital to meet the stated capital.
Today, the adb Bank is said to be on a path of growth as it has met the directive of Bank of Ghana, the country’s central bank andits regulator, concerning the stated capital and related matters.
Its five-year strategy adopted in 2018 to return it to quality growth backed by an agriculture-focused loan book and a plan to recover bad loans has begun showing dividends and Dr Mensah and his team are confident to pay dividends by the end of 2023.
Already, the Chief Executives Network Ghana Limited has given Dr. Mensah its Business Growth Achievements award, which is a testimony of the stuff the astute banker is made of.
The Ghanaian Times has today chosen to editorialise the work of Dr Mensah at adb Bank because in the first place, he has defied all the odds of COVID-19 to prove to his fellow chief executives of state-owned institutions that they can always defy the odds and prove their mettle.
His achievement is also a show of patriotism in an era where a good number of corporate and political leaders have shown signs of deflated patriotism by their laissez-faire attitudes that has collapsed a good number of state enterprises in the country, including Bank for Housing and Construction, National Savings and Credit Bank, Ghana Airways and Ghana Food Distribution Corporation.
The nation needs hard-working, critical, prudent, solution-oriented, futuristic and exemplary leadership demonstrated by Dr Mensah and his team at adb to help turn around the country’s political and socio-economic fortunes.
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