Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, has justified the heavy recruitment done by the central bank last year.
He explained that when he took over leadership at the central bank, there were a lot of things that weren’t done by the BoG, including not monitoring the virtual asset space, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and others, but the new leadership had to take the initiative to monitor these spaces. That required additional hands to be recruited.
He also revealed that every year between 50 and 60 staff of the BoG go on retirement; hence they need to be replaced.
Dr Asiama said this when asked whether the Bank of Ghana is able to sustain the funding of recruitment that has been done over the years, at the 132nd Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference in Accra on Thursday, September 24
In answer, he said, “By way of staff cost, you have to put into proper context. You have a central bank that is evolving in the sense that when we came last year, remember that there was a whole lot we were not doing; we were not monitoring the virtual asset space; we were not doing it by way of data analytics, artificial intelligence, in terms of cyber monitoring and a lot more had to be done, and so we needed more hands.
“At the same time, remember every year we get about between 50 and 60 staff retiring so what do you do? You have to replace them. You have to recruit new skills; you have to make sure that you are able to meet your mandate in the context of evolving trends in technology. Even in the FinTech space, things are changing by the day. You need to be prepared for it for that so you have to bring people in.
“When you bring them in, you have to be competitive as well because, for the highly skilled ones, if you don’t look after them well, they just get another job and leave, so you need to be competitive at all times and bring them in to keep them; some of them you spend money to train. You want to be sure that they stay and are not tempted to go elsewhere, so staff cost is significant, but we believe that over time it will taper down. “
He added, “Last year we did a bit of recruitment; this year, from next year it will go down deeply and over time we match it to the number of retirements on a yearly basis.
“What is important for me is to compare your staff cost to your level of operational cost. The rule of thumb is for it not to exceed 40 per cent of our operational cost; as we speak, it is nowhere near half of that, and so in absolute terms, yes, the figure ight look significant, but if I relate it to my total operational cost, it is not up to the threshold, and so for now we believe that we can operate with that. The real cost pressures, as far as our financials are concerned, have to do with two key things: the OMO cost, which is the cost of stability.”
