The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, has jumped to the defense of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) over the recent attacks by the minority, saying that the opposition’s demand is not backed by law.
According to the Majority Leader, the BoG is not obligated to report directly to Parliament on its daily activities.
He was speaking with an Accra-based radio station, Oman FM, following a news conference addressed by the Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, who is a former deputy minister for finance.
He indicated that the intricacies of the Central Bank’s operations should be well known to someone who has served in a finance-related capacity, asserting that issues of this nature should not be politicised.
Ato Forson, leading the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), blamed the BoG for causing its own woes. He argued that the Central Bank printed substantial amounts in 2021 and 2022 to fund government operations without recourse to the August House.
The Minority claimed that the action by the BoG was in direct violation of the BoG Act and, as such, demanded that the Governor appear before Parliament to provide explanations for the action.
However, the Suame Legislator, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, would not agree with his colleagues on the other side on the issue, arguing that Dr. Ato Forson, who addressed the issue, should have known better.
He criticised the Minority’s approach and urged against turning every matter into a political battle.
“The Bank of Ghana Governor does not directly report to Parliament. We should not make everything about the NPP and the NDC. Ato Forson should have known better because he has held the position of deputy minister of finance before and knows the operations of the Bank of Ghana,” emphasised Mensah Bonsu in an interview with Oman FM.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu further clarified that, except for reporting foreign exchange receipts, the bank is not legally required to submit daily activity reports to Parliament, defending that the BoG has consistently adhered to the provision of reporting foreign exchange receipts as mandated by law.
BOG RESPONSE
The minority had argued that the Central Bank was bankrupt, due to its poor performance over the last two years at least. But the BoG maintains that technically, it could not be bankrupt.
The Central Bank argued that comparing the 2022 financial performance with 2021 without taking cognisance of the economic situation in the country is “misleading.”
The bank said the year 2022 was the “peak of economic and social crisis in Ghana. A culmination of fiscal overruns and debt distress resulted in Ghana losing access to both international and domestic markets.”
Rating agencies downgraded Ghana to the junk category because of its huge macro-economic imbalances. The cedi depreciated sharply from GH₡6 to the dollar at the end of 2021 to almost GH₡13.1 to the dollar at the end of November 2022 until it came down to about GH₡8.57 to the dollar at the end of December 2022 (resulting in about 30 percent on a year-on-year basis and an average of 31.13%).
Similarly, inflation rose from an average of 12.62 percent at the end of December 2021 to 54.14 percent at the end of December 2022.
These developments, the BoG stated, had a significant impact on the operations of the Bank and every other entity in the country.
Meanwhile, the BoG insisted that a year-on-year comparison of the financial statements of all entities in Ghana would reveal these sharp jumps.
