Karaga (N/R), Feb. 22, GNA – The Management of Bonzali Rural Bank Limited has opened a new branch at Karaga in the Northern Region to provide banking needs to help stimulate economic activities of residents of the area.
The opening of the Karaga branch brings to six the total number of branches of Bonzali Rural Bank spread across the Region with headquarters at Kumbungu.
Karaga District, which was created out of the former Gushegu-Karaga District in 2006, did not have any bank operating there, compelling workers especially civil servants, to travel to Tamale or Gushegu to undertake banking transactions including accessing of salaries.
This, among other reasons, informed the decision of the Management of Bonzali Rural Bank to open a new branch in the district to bring banking needs closer to the people, as well as assist women groups with small loans to undertake their business ventures.
Alhaji Mahdi Salifu Abdulai, Board Chairman of Bonzali Rural Bank, who opened the branch at Karaga on Thursday, said the bank would work to reduce poverty by reaching out to the productive and poor, providing easy access to savings and credit services to large number of low income earners.
Alhaji Abdulai said the Karaga branch had already registered 33 women groups, out of which 20 groups had opened accounts with the bank and loans amounting to GHc32,000.00 had been disbursed to six of the groups to stimulate their various socio-economic activities.
He said the bank’s greatest area of influence was group-lending dubbed microfinance, adding that as at December 31, 2012, it had disbursed loans to the tune of GHc4,600,000,00 to such groups.
He gave the assurance that the bank would continue to pursue social responsibility initiatives to bring relief to people in its catchment areas.
Bonzali Rural Bank, the oldest rural bank in the Northern Region, was licensed by the Bank of Ghana in 1990 to operate as a banking institution under the name Kumbungu Rural Bank, but that name was changed in 1998 to reflect its present investment endeavours.
Mr Sulemana Hussein Issah, District Chief Executive for Karaga said the establishment of the bank in the district would help address most of the challenges faced by workers and the business community in the district.
Mr Hussein Issah said, ‘Our staff and business community who hitherto had to go to Tamale and Gushegu for their banking business would be saved the time, resources and energy since there is now a bank at their doorstep.’
He said it would also help minimize lateness and absenteeism amongst most workers in the district, and thanked the Management of Bonzali Rural Bank for opening the Karaga branch.
GNA