Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) in spite of the difficult economic challenges last year, posted an impressive performance with a profit after tax of GH¢81.6 million.
This represents an increase of 24.8 per cent growth of the GH¢65.4 million profit recorded the previous year.
The Board Chairman of ADB, Daasebre AkuamoahAgyapong II, disclosing this at ADB's 2022 and 35th Annual General Meeting in Accra yesterday, said the performance of the bank was driven by improvement in interest income as a result of the growth in loans and advances.
He said interest income grew from GH¢415.4 million in 2020 to GH¢480.3 million in 2021 and operating income soared from GH¢555.9 million in 2020 to GH¢639.9 million in 2021.
DaasebreAgyapong II, who is the Kwawuhene and the President of the Kwahu Traditional Council, said the bank's performance last year resulted in Return on Equity and Return on Assets of 12.09 per cent and 1.81 against 7.69 per cent and 1.14 per cent respectively.
He said assets of the bank grew to GH¢6.45 million in 2021 from GH¢5.72 million in 2020, and deposits grew 15 per cent from GH¢4.2 billion in 2020 to GH¢4.9 billion.
"The size of our balance sheet grew over the year from GH¢5.7 billion to GH¢6.5 billion in 2021 representing 12.9 per cent growth," the Board Chairman said.
Daasebre Agyapong II stated that Non-Performing Loan portfolio of the bank witnessed a reduction from 34 per cent in 2020 to 31 per cent in 2021.
"Our target is to bring the NPL ratio within industry bracket of 14 per cent by 2023," he said.
The Board Chairman said the capital adequacy ratio was 14.49 per cent and above the regulatory minimum of 11.5 per cent.
"The reconstituted board continued with the implementation of the Strategic Plan of the bank adopted for the period 2020 to 2020 and the associated annual budgets," DaasebreAgyapong II said.
He indicated that the new Board would review the strategy at the end of its implementation period and adopt a new strategy starting from 2023.
DaasebreAgyapong II said the strategic direction of the new Board would continue to focus on agriculture since that was the core business of the bank.
"We remain confident of the prospects of the bank and the fact that we are on the right track towards full recovery," the Board Chairman assured.
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Managing Director of ADB, Dr John Kofi Mensah, in an interview said the bank would continue to put in place measures and strategies to reduce NPLs.
He pledged that ADB would continue to focus on agriculture in spite that the sector was difficult and risky, indicating that in the poultry industry if a disease sets in one was likely to lose all the birds.
Dr Mensah said the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine conflict had dealt a big blow to agriculture.
The Managing Director said ADB would continue to support the agriculture sector to thrive because the COVID-19 pandemic had had negative effect on the sector.
"Every economy depends on the agriculture sector. Had it not been the good efforts of the agriculture sector, coronavirus would have damaged the economy more than we saw."
Mr Mensah called on all stakeholders in the country to support agriculture, stressing that "Agric is an area many institutions must be sacrificed to be there."
