Government has ploughed back its US$914 000 dividend in Agribank to fund the capitalization and growth of the once loss making entity.
By Jeoffrey Ncube
Speaking during the Agribank, Annual General Meeting held in Harare on Monday, Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamasa said treasury has been capitalizing the bank as they want to see the bank growing so that it can efficiently discharge its mandate of funding agriculture in the country.
Treasury has been capitalizing Agribank, we started with a capitalization of US$4 million, another US$30 million in treasury bills during 2015, and we went on again to give them a further capital injection of US$10 million in 2016.
“This capitalization is to demonstrate the importance that we attach to agriculture; we want to see this bank grows, efficiently run and discharging its mandate to finance agriculture in this country,’’ said Chinamasa.
The Minister commended the bank for doing well in turning around the once loss making entity to make a profit of US$4.8 million.
“I want to commend the bank and management for a job well done, we are seeing now the turnaround of the bank, from a loss position, and they have been able to make a profit of 4.8 million.
“They have declared a dividend to pay to us as share holders but we have taken a position which we have conveyed that the 914000 dividend which they were going to pay to us we are ploughing it back into further capitilisation of Agribank,“ said the Minister.
The bank recorded an increase of 45.2% in net interest income for the year to close the year with US$25.9 million compared to US$17.8 million for the prior year.
Total assets were US$171.67 million in 2015, representing a growth of 18.8%. The loan recoveries, placements with ZAMCO and credit management strategies implemented in 2016 has resulted in Non Performing Loans declining from about 20% in December 2016 to about 16% in April 2017.
