The minority group in parliament led by Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has intensified their call on the governor of the Central Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison and his lieutenants to resign with more justifications.
Background
It would be recalled that on the 8th of August, 2023 the minority issued a 21-day ultimatum to the governor of the Central Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison and his lieutenants to vacate their posts, after they allegedly supervised the loss of GH₵60.8 billion.
The minority posited that the staggering loss of GH₵60.8 billion recorded by the Bank of Ghana was equivalent to $6 billion, which is twice the amount sought from the IMF in the country’s recent bailout.
According to them, governor Addison and his collaborators within the government have not just been clueless, but unresponsive, insensitive and reckless in all their dealings which has worsened the plights of Ghanaians.
Dr Ato Forson emphatically mentioned that the Central Bank of the state has been terribly desecrated by the governor, his deputies and the government to a point that the bank has become bankrupt.
Delivering an address at a public forum dubbed – “Occupy BoG Protest” at the University of Professional Studies yesterday, Dr Ato Forson reiterated the minority’s call for governor Addison and his deputies to resign.
Giving more justifications to back their call, Dr Forson indicated that the BoG’s governor and his deputies could not be exonerated from the current hardship that the government has subjected Ghanaians to.
“Their illegal and excessive printing of money caused the depletion of Ghana’s external reserves, which resulted in the unprecedented depreciation of the Cedi, the main cause of the hyper-inflation in 2022,” he said.
According to Dr Forson an estimated 850,000 people were reported by the World Bank to have been pushed further down the poverty line in 2022, due to inflation resulting from the BoG’s recklessness.
Using figures contained in government’s official documents, he asserted that government has admitted in Paragraph 2 of the MEFP sent to IMF that the illegal printing of money by the BoG caused the hyper-inflation of 54.1% in 2022.
This mess, he alleged, was strictly chaired by the head of the economic management, Dr Bawunia and recklessly supervised by Dr Addison and his lieutenants.
According to Dr Forson, the minority raised red flag about illegal printing of money, but the BoG, in connivance with the government, vehemently denied the minority’s claims.
“Thanks to the IMF, the government has backed down from its spirited denials and has admitted that indeed the Bank of Ghana printed money to finance its over-bloated government expenditures in 2022,” he stated.
“Indeed, paragraph 8 of the IMF Staff Report gives further detail that Ghana’s central bank, not only illegally but also excessively, printed over GHS45 billion, representing 7.2% of GDP in 2022 alone, and GHS35 billion in 2021,” he added.
The recklessness of the BoG and his deputies with an aid and abetment by “Mr. Strategist” have desecrated the once viable BoG and shamefully turned it to a crime scene.
Dr Ato Forson further alleged that latest report by the World Bank had illustrated how the Bank of Ghana and government had impoverished an additional 850,000 Ghanaians and pushed them into extreme poverty.
Under their watch, he said “our public debt increased to about GHS600 billion by end of 2022 from the GHS120 billion inherited an increase of about 400%”.
Default payment
For the first time in the country’s history, the minority indicated that Ghana defaulted in the repayment of both domestic and foreign debts as a result of the recklessness and mismanagement of the economic management team.
The mismanagement was part of the reasons international rating agencies downgraded Ghana’s credit worthiness to “D”, in other words “super-junky,” the minority posited.
“Today, Ghana’s financial sector has virtually collapsed, with all the 23 banks in the country recording massive impairment losses of over GHS18 billion in 2022,” he added.
Governor Addison turned BoG into a law unto itself
He also alleged that the BoG and the government have written off about GHS 48.4 billion of government debt, owed to the Bank of Ghana without parliamentary approval.
This, he said, contravened Section 96 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) which spells out the offences and penalties that must be applied.
They cannot, therefore, arrogate to themselves the power to unilaterally write off government debt without recourse to the Parliament of Ghana, in clear violation of section 53 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).
The Bank of Ghana he said, was legally regulated by law and therefore assured that the Minority Caucus would continue to ensure that they follow and operate within the law.
Why should Ghanaians be worried about the mess at the Bank of Ghana
The minority asked Ghanaians to be worried about the current situation of the BoG because ultimately the Ghanaian Tax-Payer would be required to recapitalise the Bank of Ghana.
“Let me also state that another cardinal sin of the Governor of the Central Bank and his deputies is their decision to write off government’s debt on the blind side of parliament,” he stressed
Why are we embarking on the #OccupyBoG protest march?
“Our protest march is to back our demand for the immediate resignation of the Governor of Bank of Ghana and his two deputies. They mismanaged the Bank of Ghana and illegally and excessively printed money between 2019 and 2022 in contravention of the Bank of Ghana Act, leading to a hyperinflation of 54.1%.
“This pushed an additional 850,000 Ghanaians from middle income into extreme poverty.Their reckless mismanagement of the Central Bank also resulted in a loss of GH₵60.8 billion, causing a negative equity of GH₵55.1 billion.
“They also illegally wrote off a whopping GH₵48 billion of Government’s indebtedness, as well as other acts of financial malfeasance by the Governor, his Deputies and Directors of the Bank of Ghana as contained in the 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statement of the Bank.
These are the reasons why we are going to embark on the #OccupyBoG protest march on 5th September, 2023”, he said.
