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Merchant Bank Ghana Limited gave a 21-day ultimatum to its known debtors through an advertisement in the newspapers on Tuesday, January 14, 2013. The defaulters are thus required to settle all their indebtedness to the bank from the date the advertisement was published in the newspapers. The bank was recently sold to Fortiz Equity Fund Limited in a controversial deal because of its mammoth non-performing loans. The new management of the bank noted that it was making frantic efforts to recover the loans regardless of the personalities involved including President John Mahama�s brother, Ibrahim Mahama. Last week, President Mahama challenged the bank to form a taskforce to go after its debtors. The bank stated that failure by its debtors to honour their debt obligations will compel Merban Assets Recovery Trust (MART), its subsidiary, to publish the names of all defaulters and the amounts of money they owe to the bank after a grace period of five working days from the deadline indicated in the advertisement. Engineer & Planners, an indigenous company owned by Ibrahim Mahama last year, gave assurance that it would pay an amount of $28 million, which it owed Merchant Bank. Also E&P promised that it would pay its loan to Merchant Bank by 20th December, but there appears not to be any such development. The issue has generated some controversy following leaked documents that pointed to meetings in which President Mahama and others discussed the loan. The newly-appointed Managing Director of the bank, Niila Selormey, stated that she was looking at initiatives to re-align Merchant Bank�s branches, adding that she will also take steps to expand the bank�s retail business, as well as ATM services.