The Atwima Mponua Rural Bank at Toase recorded a shortfall of 146.9 million cedis in its operations in 2006 as against a net profit of 1,107 billion cedis in 2005. Mr. Ben Bekoe Yirenkyi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank, said this at the 23rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders at Toase in the Atwima Nwabiagya District on Friday. He said the bank's total assets increased by ¢12,124 billion from ¢38,650 billion in 2005 to ¢50,774 billion in 2006. Total deposits of the bank grew from ¢29.7 billion in 2005 to ¢40.1 billion in 2006 by an increase of ¢10.4 billion. He said during the year under review, the bank embarked on a rigorous loan discovery exercise to recover outstanding loans and the exercise yielded good results. Mr. Yirenkyi, however, said some of the long-standing loans had gone bad culminating in an increase in the provision of bad and doubtful debts from ¢606,372 million in 2005 to ¢746, 372 million as at the end of 2006 by ¢140 million. The bank purchased 764.08 tonnes of cocoa amounting to ¢6,995,573 billion in the 2005-2007 crop year as against 1,780 tonnes of cocoa totaling ¢15,026 billion in 2005-2006 crop year. Mr. Emmanuel Kwapong, Managing Director of ARP Apex Bank, in an address read for him, commended the Board and Management of the bank for their impressive performance in rating among the best rural banks in the country. He also urged the bank to strengthen its internal control mechanisms to check fraud. Mr. Thomas Ofori-Donkor, Atwima Nwabiagya District Chief Executive, appealed to the bank to increase the percentage of money allocated to individuals and co-operative groups as loans and also expand their scholarship scheme to cover students who are brilliant but needy. Source: GNA