The CEO of Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR) Herman Klaassen, and his deputy, José Habimana, stepped down last week from their positions at the bank.According to the BPR Board Chairman, Afrique Ramba, the top managers were under pressure as a result of poor performance.“We received their resignation letters. The pressure was on them. As overseer of the bank (board), we regularly request for improvement in some areas and we were not impressed with the overall performance,” Ramba told The New Times, over the weekend.The current Chief Commercial Officer, Paul Van Apeldoorn, was appointed as interim CEO.BPR has the largest presence in the country, with a network of 189 outlets spread across Rwanda.The bank has Rwf14.3 billion in share capital, according to its website.BPR board of directors is composed of nine members with three appointed by RABOBANK, a Dutch-based company that owns 35 per cent equity in the bank.Former members of the BPR cooperative (basically account holders) own 65 per cent.Ramba however did not go into details on how bad or low the performance was, and the set targets that the managers had failed to meet.Klaaffen had been in office for two years.
