GCB RESUMES OPERATIONS IN BAWKU (PAGE 55, JUNE 2, 2010)

ONE and a half months of suspending its operations in the Bawku Municipality, the management of Ghana Commercial Bank has resumed operations of the bank in the area.
Banking services were suspended as a result of the unstable situation caused by the conflict in the Bawku Municipality in April this year.
The three major banks serving the area,— the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and the Barclays Bank — shut their doors to clients and relocated to other parts of the Upper East Region.
However, not long after their closure, ADB resumed operations but the other two remained closed forcing customers in need of banking services to travel all the way to Bolgatanga to access them.
Last Monday, staff of GCB who have been operating in Bolgatanga returned to their Bawku offices, the first in nearly 45 days to serve their customers, some of whom come from neighboring Garu-Tempane, Pusiga and Zebilla.
The closure of the bank significantly reduced productivity as civil servants, pensioners and other clients had to abandon their work places and travel far distances to assess their banks.
A cross-section of the public, particularly customers of the GCB in Bawku welcome the resumption of banking services in the municipality.
A source at the bank who pleaded anonymity told the Daily Graphic that for every day that the bank remained closed, the bank was losing the opportunity to make revenue, while residents of Bawku were not getting the needed banking services.
The source therefore expressed the hope that the relatively calm situation would be maintained if not enhanced to ensure that permanent peace returns to the area to enable the continuous operation of the bank .
Last Friday, the Office of National Security relaxed the temporary ban imposed on the riding of motorbikes in the Bawku municipality and its environs.
The ban which had been relaxed to allow only females to ride motorbikes, was also hailed by some of the citizens of the area, mostly business owners who believed that it would revive their commercial ventures particularly the sale of motorcycles among others.