NDB boasts P1.6bn of assets � Morapedi

Staff Writer | Monday March 30, 2015 16:36

 

As the NDB  celebrates 51 years, Morapedi hailed it as a profitable entity that has been paying dividends amounting to P130 million in the past 12 years. The NDB is currently undergoing transformation as it bids to go commercial, and Morapedi says  the bank is working hard to attain the achievable  goal.

The NDB  boss also says her bank has been on a robust drive to reduce debts by debt collection, a process that has seen them collecting P56 million last year.

The bank, according to the CEO was founded by the colonial government in 1963 and started operations in 1964,  to diversify the economy of Botswana with financial assistance to agriculture to promote food security. Retail and commerce sectors were  also added, as well as human development capital.

Contrary to views that being prominently agriculture based could be hurting the bank, Morapedi argues that the bank took a conscious decision to make agriculture their core focus, as a major contributor to food security and empowering Batswana.

While 75% of the NDB business is agriculture related, the CEO says they also fund retail, commerce, residential property, study loans, among others.

She said her bank is not a loss making entity and does not depend on government for bail-outs or subventions, as some think. Rather, Morapedi says NDB continues to be self-sustainable  and borrow from the capital markets under constrained interest rates environment.

As they work toward commercialisation, the NDB CEO says they have started implementing a number of exercises including  debt management, structure realignment, systems and processes realignment.

She says  one of the results of this has been the introduction of relationship managers by sector. The managers work closely with key clients in their respective businesses.

Morapedi says they  are in the process of finalising the business model that will be submitted to government. They are also  doing clean up to ensure that it has the best resources for  the bank to sell and prove best value for government.