President of Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB) has indicated that Non-Performing Loans (NPL) of banks should reduce significantly before the end of this year.

Alhassan Andani’s assurance follows a substantial increase in Impairment Charge on loans and Advances by some listed banks, like Ecobank, CAL, SG and Standard Chartered Bank. 

The third quarter earnings revealed a rising Non-Performing Loans despite the payment of a fraction of energy sector debts, which had contributed to these rising NPL’s.

Ecobank's NPL for the nine months ending September 2016 went up to GHC44 million from GHC40 million for the same period in 2015.  

Standard Chartered Bank also saw its impairment charge on loan advances increase to GHC61 million for the first 9 months of this year from GHC38 million in 2015.

The development was interesting, due to the fact that, government recently announced the payment of some energy sector debts, with an initial payment of some GHC250 million.

This industry players say should have impacted on the numbers positively but Mr Andani says these payments should reflect in the last quarter results.

In a related development, the much talked about Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) debts, can be put at $300 million dollars, accounting firm, Ernst and Yong has said.

The firm was commissioned to audit the debts of the BDC’s and Mr Andani says this should pave the way for the payment of these debts very soon.