Guaranty Trust Bank Uganda (GTBank) Ltd has appointed Lekan Sanusi as its new Managing Director. His tenure took effect on April 23, 2018. Sanusi replaced Olufemi Omotoso, who has since returned to the bank’s head offices in Nigeria.
Sources say Omotoso’s contract expired last year and declined to renew it.
GTBank entered the East African market in 2014 after acquiring 70 percent in Fina Bank Group’s operations in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
Omotoso has been the MD of GTBank Uganda since 2014, but he has failed to improve the bank’s performance.
It recorded a loss of Shs1.9bn in 2017, up from Shs1.43bn loss in 2016.
Apart from making losses in 2017, GTBank saw customer deposits reduce to Shs140.6bn, down from Shs143.16bn in 2016.
Loans and advances increased to Shs79.28bn in 2017, up from 70.45bn a year earlier, while total assets increased to Shs198.9bn, from Shs143.16bn in 2016.
The bank’s total income increased slightly to Shs24.59bn in 2017, up from Shs21.2bn, while total expenditure increased to Shs25.96bn, up from Shs23.36bn recorded in 2016.
The bank’s Non-Performing Loans also increased, hitting Shs4bn in 2017, up from Shs2.85bn in 2016.
However, it’s Core Capital also increased slightly to Shs29.59bn in 2017, up from Shs25.7bn in 2016.
GTBank Uganda has been making losses for over seven years. In 2014 when it took over Fina Bank, it recorded a loss of Shs211.5m, down from Shs2.5bn loss recorded in 2013. However , the loss increased in 2015, hitting Shs2.39bn.
None the less, during Omotoso’s tenure, GTBank Uganda was the first bank in Uganda to attain the MasterCard issuer and merchant status. The bank also launched digital platforms although they are yet to be felt in the market.
Daunting Task For New MD
The new MD has a huge task at hand as most of GTBank’s key performance parameters aren’t impressive. However, he has experience to turnaround the bank as long as key decisions aren’t taken from Nigeria like the case has been with many subsidiaries of Nigeria based banks in Uganda, a thing that has adversely affected their performance.
Sanusi has been part of Guaranty Trust Bank Group for the last 23 years and his experience cuts across several units in the bank.
Prior to his appointment as MD of GTBank Uganda, Sanusi was the Managing Director of GTBank Ghana Ltd, having assumed the capacity in January 2012 and led the bank’s growth especially in the area of technology in banking and innovation.
He holds a First Class honors (Ogun State University, 1989) and Masters of Science degree in Economics (University of Lagos, 1995). He also holds a Master of Arts degree in Banking and Finance from the Sheffield, UK (1996).
The issue here is that his contract term has run out and irrespective of bank making profit or loss it’s the policy of the bank that you shuttle between countries so as a Ugandan if you don’t know how the Nigerian banking system runs stop putting negative and fake news out there . The man has built his reputation on a high standard for you to rubbish his efforts . The bank belongs to shareholders and the share lholders come first .So better get your facts right next time
It seems the figures you quoted are not correct. Customer deposit growth was 40% in 2017 over 2016 and i don’t think it’s nice to run a professional down. The outgoing MDs contract expired since last year and he didn’t want a renewal.
Boss the figures were published in newspapers. The issue of contract is also well stated in the story.