By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief
ABUJA — Preparatory to returning to the market, Savannah Bank Plc has commenced opening of contact offices across the country, even as consultants work assiduously to ascertain what is left of the old bank.

Mr. Sunny Okoro, who spoke to journalists on behalf of the Executive Director of the bank, Mrs. Patricia Nwobodo, during a chat in Abuja, said consultants made up of financial, information technology, management and business strategy experts were working round the clock to determine the best approach to the bank’s return to business.

“We have mobilised our consultants and they are all working. We brought in financial consultants, management and strategy consultants, IT consultants and brand consultants,” he said.

The first thing we are doing now is to do a re-evaluation.  We have to ascertain where we are. The consultants are working with us to ascertain what is left of the old Savannah Bank,” he said.

One critically task of the financial consultants, Mr. Okoro said was to determine the exact branch balances as the time the bank was closed by the CBN.

Mr. Okoro who spoke at the renovated main branch of Savannah Bank described it as contact office from the bank could relate with its stakeholders.  He added that several other such facilities of the bank were being renovated across the nation for similar purposes. With such offices, he said that stakeholders would be able to relate with the bank and particularly have depositors’ questions answered until full operations would commence.

Responding to a question on why it has taken the bank such a long time to begin operations after its licence was restored through a court verdict, the spokesman said that physical handover of the bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was completed last November.

He explained that owing to the long period of closure, the bank lost much of its physical infrastructure, IT infrastructure and vehicles, which he said had become unserviceable.

The spokesman assured that with the level of goodwill and popularity of Savannah, it would bounce back to the market with a greater vigour and expressed optimism that with the quality of investors behind the institution, it would be a major player in the industry.