ECOBANK says the continuous payment of good dividend to SSNIT justifies its takeover of the Trust Bank. ECOBANK today paid 13.7 million cedis to SSNIT as dividend for 2012. This represents a 22 percent increase over what it gave to the State Pensions Trust in 2011. SSNIT in 2011 sold out its interest in TTB in return for some 16 percent interest in ECOBANK. Some analysts had described the merger as a bad investment decision. But Managing Director of ECOBANK, Samuel Ashitey Adjei tells Joy Business the payment has proven sceptics wrong. “We are very happy with what we have done; we have started reaping the benefits of the merger already, the figures are there to speak for themselves.” He assured that the bank will continue to do their best to record improvement in order not to pay less what they have paid to the state in subsequent years.