Angry ADB Workers calls for dismissal of MD
 

Workers of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) have called for the immediate dismissal of its Managing Director, Stephen Kpordzih, and the dissolution of the Board of Directors to save the financial institution from imminent collapse.

The workers are demanding immediate reversal and unconditional sale of the ADB House as well as suspension of the Initial Public Offer (IPO) of its assets.

The workers have also demanded for a comprehensive forensic audit to be conducted within the shortest possible time into the activities of the Board and the Managing Director.

These were contained in a resolution the workers passed at an emergency National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the ADB staff union in Accra.

In an interview later with the Ghana News Agency, Mr. Mark Imoro Chairman of ADB Workers Union also called on the Executive Head of Human Resource of the Bank to also step aside to prevent influencing the review process.

He said the workers have expressed the abysmal performance of the bank per their financial statement for 2014 and are demanding an explanation for the causes of the poor performance.

Mr Imoro explained that the bank before 2009 was among the five top banks in the country but currently, “we are struggling to catch up between the 15th and 20th position on the league of 28 Commercial banks--according to all profitability ratios”.

The ADB, which was set up in 1965 by Act 286 is one of the only two wholly publicly-owned banks in Ghana.

He said contrary to the impressions being created by the current management over the past six years especially to the public that the Bank was doing well, “our financials for 2014 says it all and it is quite clear that the Bank is fast sinking and urgent steps needed to be taken to salvage the dwindling fortunes of the Bank”.

Mr Imoro said the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the bank the approval to go ahead and offer its shares to the public and the bank was expected to offload a little over 100 million shares to the public by the end of this April, with the hope to give out 75 per cent of the Bank and raise about GHC300 million.

“We the workers are insisting that instead of listing on the stock market, the bank should rather embark on a massive recovery exercise to rake in the GHC600 million that we have given out there in unrecovered loans.”

Meanwhile, Mr John Esiape, the General Secretary of the Union of Industry, Commerce and Finance Workers (UNICOF) has asked the ADB staff to exercise restraint as they pursue the issue on their behalf.

He has also asked the management of the Bank to put on hold their initial public offer until the concerns raised by the workers are addressed amicably.

 

SOURCE: GNA