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Shareholders of Jomoro Rural Bank Limited, headquartered at Tikobo No. 1 in the Western region, last Saturday passed a vote of non-confidence in seven board of directors and unanimously replaced them with new people in an election supervised by the Electoral Commission (EC). The decision was implemented at the bank�s 14th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at Tikobo No. 1 in the presence of representatives of Bank of Ghana (BoG), ARB Apex Bank, directors of other rural banks and other invited guests. Their major reason was the bank�s abysmal performance in the year ending 2010, inability to recover most of the loans and an increase in bad debts. �We need dynamic, assiduous and visionary directors with high-level management acumen to bring the Jomoro Rural Bank back on track before Bank of Ghana declares it distressed very soon�, an overwhelming majority of the shareholders told CITY& BUSINESS GUIDE. Despite various interventions, pleas and counsel from Franklin Belnye, Deputy Head, Banking Supervision of Bank of Ghana (BoG); Hyginus Zon, Head, Internal Control Department of Apex Bank, who represented Eric Osei-Bonsu, the Managing Director of ARB Apex Bank and Sylvester Daddieh, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Jomoro, the over 300 shareholders maintained their stance and removed all the directors. The seven newly-elected directors who would meet soon to appoint a chairperson are Samuel Alex Bervell from Bonyere zone; Ernest Kwofie and Nana Pena, Tikobo No. 1 zone; Dr. Cosmas Cobbold, Coastal zone; Nti, Elubo zone and Mr. Ndede from Tikobo No. 2 zone. Papachie Acquah, Vice Chairman of the former board, in a speech, intimated that profit before tax decreased drastically from GH�63,370.00 in 2009 to GH�2,952.00 in 2010, a decrease of 95.34 per cent. �The reasons for these were the over 50 per cent decline in interest rates of treasury bills and other money market instruments from 2009 to 2010. Operational costs, staff costs and provision of bad debt were contributory factors,� he added. The shareholders booed and yelled when Papachie Acquah mentioned that overdue, non-performing and impaired loans had reduced the bank�s profitability, resulting in low turnover and additional income. He said customer service improved after they changed from manual operations to a fully computerized and efficient banking regime, adding that most of the staff had also upgraded their skills. Mr. Franklin Belnye, who earlier advocated for �continuity in change,� cautioned the shareholders against removing all the directors and urged them to retain one or two so that the new directors would learn from them. He noted that as competition in the banking industry intensifies, directors and shareholders should strategize by introducing innovative products and raising share capital, stressing that two rural banks could merge to become stronger. Eric Osei-Bonsu, Managing Director of ARB Apex Bank, in a speech read on his behalf, appealed to bank directors to institute a risk management policy to identify, assess, monitor and control operational and credit risks, among others. He called on the bank to take steps to boost deposit mobilization to make credit available to people in its catchment area who are engaged in small-scale enterprises and other income-generating ventures. From Sam Mark Essien, Tikobo No. 1