The Minority in Parliament has kicked back at the Bank of Ghana for its response to the issues raised in their Tuesday, August 8, ‘Moment of Truth’ presser which spelt the ills in the conduct of management of the Central Bank.
The 2022 Annual Report of the bank revealed a GH₵60.8 billion loss incured in the 2022 fiscal year with a negative equity of GH₵55.1 billion which they attributed to government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme in a subsequent press release when they started receiving backlash from the general public.
The Bank of Ghana after the NDC press conference on Tuesday released another statement to counter the issues raised during the Minority’s meeting with the media. Apart from indicating that the BoG cannot be insolvent as the NDC is claiming, it also justified a $250 million ultramodern head office they are putting up.
READ ALSO: Ato Forson ‘hails’ handlers of Ghana’s economy for potential feature in Guinness Book of Records
But an August 11 statement signed by Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson in a counter-response to the BoG says the key issues raised in their presser were not addressed by the Central Bank.
“…It is therefore totally irresponsible for the managers of the Bank of Ghana to conveniently ignore these serious legal infractions which have brought untold hardships on Ghanaians and rather engage in flimsy justifications and needless equalizations,” portions of the release stated.
According to the Minority, one of the key issues which involves the printing of extra monies to the government, without recourse to what the constitution says with regards to staying within the 5% threshold of the previous year’s revenue generation constituting criminality was not addressed.
READ ALSO: Bank of Ghana spends GH¢358 million to restructure government debt in 2022 – Annual Report
“The referenced Bank of Ghana’s statement does not address the most fundamental issue which has to do with the printing of money by BOG for the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government in 2021 and 2022 in clear contravention of Section 30 of the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2016 (ACT 918). Indeed, throughout the statement, BOG does not and could not have offered any reasonable justification for printing a whopping GHS35 billion in 2021 and GHS42 billion in 2022 to finance the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government, in clear breach of their governing law.
“It is an indisputable fact, that the amount of monies printed by BOG for the reckless AkufoAddo/Bawumia government both in 2021 and 2022 far exceeds the legally acceptable threshold of 5% of the previous fiscal years’ total revenue.
“This the Bank did without cognizance of the legal duty imposed on the Governor of BOG to inform the Minister of Finance, who is required upon notification from the Governor of BOG to notify Parliament of the attainment of the 5% threshold and/or the setting of a new limit of government’s borrowing.
“Indeed, the facts show that BOG acted as law unto itself by willfully engaging in the illegal printing of monies to finance the recklessness of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government both in 2021 and 2022.
“This illegal conduct of the Governor of BOG constitutes a criminal offense under section 67 of the Bank of Ghana Act and cannot be wished away by the flimsy justifications mounted by the Bank in the multiple press statements they have issued in the last couple of days.
“As a matter of fact, contrary to claims by the Governor of the Central Bank and his deputies that they were committed to promoting a cash-lite economy, they have been printing higher denominations of new GHS100 and GHS200 notes.
“This together with the large injections of money into the economy caused currency-outside-banks to increase from GH¢14 billion in 2019 to GHȼ31.4 billion by 2022, representing an increase of over 124%.
“Strangely, while the BoG kept increasing its policy rate and undertaking these injections at the same time, they knew very well that their actions could spike inflation and result in the Bank incurring significant costs.”
The effect of the poor development from the BoG resulted to the World Bank report which indicates many Ghanaians were pushed into poverty as a result of the hyperinflation caused by the excess monies printed by the Central Bank.
“As a direct consequence of the illegal printing of monies by the Bank of Ghana, the rate of inflation in the country spiraled to hyper levels last year, when Ghana recorded a record-high inflation rate of 54.1% in December 2022.
“It bears reminding the Bank of Ghana that according to a recent World Bank report, this hyperinflation which was mainly occasioned by their recklessness and mismanagement, pushed over 850,000 people into poverty,” Dr. Ato Forson stated.
