The NDC has established itself as a party that loves to create public unrest against ruling NPP governments,whenever in opposition.
During President Kufuor’s second term, the NDC frequently organised demonstrations, some laced with violence and lawlessness, like burning of tyres in the streets just to provoke the Police. The NDC would accuse the NPP government of any frivolous thing and blow it out of proportion, yet the opposition NDC would do worse things than that when in power.
The NPP, on the other hand, always comes in peace and never would it organise demonstrations or resort to acts of lawlessness as the NDC cherishes, doing. Any demonstration in the NDC era, was by workers, rising up against cost of living.
Ghanaians cannot forget so soon those unbearable days during the first eight years of NDC in power, with Rawlings as president. His eleven years as PNDC chairman and head of state, brought about a serious downfall of our economy. Under his watch the cedi depreciated 18,809.09% from ¢2.75 to $1.00 in 1981, to ¢520.00 to a dollar at the end of the 1992.The first two terms of the NDC saw the cedi depreciating by 1,277% from ¢520.00 in 1992 to ¢7,163.00 to a dollar in 2000.
The economic situation then, was so unstable that whenever credit officers were assessing projects, they were directed to add an indicator called in-the-worse-case-scenario. With this one, the final cost of production, on paper,was upped by about ten or so percentage points and deducted from the estimated revenue or income. The credit officer would then assess whether the project could survive the economic turbulence before it is determined to be viable.
Yet, the NPP in opposition, never took advantage of the NDC’s mess and mismanagement to organise demonstrations, but between 2007 and 2008, the NDC chose to spread lies, to create public dissatisfaction against the ruling government.
Today, among the NDC to-do list of lies and confusion, is a second demonstration against Dr. Addison, Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) governor and his two deputies, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Mrs. Elsie Addo Awadzi, after the Tuesday, October 3, 2023 demonstration.What is the reason behind these unnecessary attacks on Dr. Addison’s personality and professionality?
Bank of Ghana and the NDC: After the October, 2023 demonstration, the NDC intended to go on another one on Tuesday July 30, 2024. But it postponed and rescheduled it for tomorrow Tuesday, August 13, 2024. Unless, the demonstration is postponed again, the NDC will tomorrow, embark on the second demonstration, against the BoG’s governor and his deputies. Like the first one, it is mainly about the GH¢60 billion ($5.7 billion) loss for fiscal year 2022 and the $250 million for the construction of a new head office block.
Theseare what the NDC is calling mismanagement, and because the governor did not come to receiveits petition, last October, it must embark on another, tomorrow.
Seriously speaking, is the NDC aware that most Central Banks in the world reported losses during the period under review? Peterson Institute for International Economics, (PIIE) in its January 18, 2023 report on Realtime Economics, entitled, ‘Central Banks Are Incurring Losses, But Critics’ Concern Are Overblown’, it stated and I quote, “First came the surge in inflation, which central banks did not foresee or prevent. Now as interest rates rise, many central banks around the world are reporting heavy financial losses on the financial assets they acquired over the previous decade – a further reputational blow because central banks have tended to make profits year in and year out.
The biggest hit has been to the Swiss National Bank (SNB), which lost the equivalent of $143 billion in 2022. This sum is almost 18 percent of Swiss GDP and may be the largest one-year loss ever recorded by a central bank.”
So, central banks,made losses, due to the structural changes in their balance sheets after the exceptional measures adopted during the economic crises of recent years, which were necessary to maintain price stability.
This is an acceptable situation which occasionally occurs in banking, and known to even customers, yet the NDC seems highly ignorant of this. In all this, as the monetary authority, central banks cannot run out of money.
If the solution to losses made by central banks is for the resignation of leadership, then the Swiss National Bank should have been shut down by now.
The other problem NDC has with BoG is about the construction of the bank’s $250 million new head office block. The current head office block was built in the early sixties, and decades later, the building failed structural integrity assessment and is no longer fit for purpose because it cannot stand any major natural disaster like earth tremors or strong winds, especially with about ten times more occupants than it was built to contain.
The Central Bank placed the need to have a new head office block on its priority list, to government after government. Even the previous NDC regime gave a go-ahead, with one of its party members offering to sell his plot of land to BoG for the new head office block at $35 million. So, what is the opposition’s problem now?
Apart from the need to have a more modern head office, the new block will place BoG in a very good position to host the Regional Central Bank, since it is already hosting the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) of the sub-region.
And unlike the new ministries blocks for Health and Foreign Affairs, the Bank of Ghana is not using state funds for its new office block;again, what is the problem here?
The question is, why is the NDC bent on removing Dr. Ernest Addison from office? The answer is, in 2017, Dr. Addison terminated the Sibton Switch deal, which could have made the NDC to corruptly amass billions of dollars from the state.
If there is any governor to be kicked out of office, it should rather have been Dr. Abdul NashiruIssahaku or Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah, who were governors in 2016, in the NDC era, when the Sibton Switch deal was struck.
Under the supervision of either or both of these gentlemen, Bank of Ghana got into a fraudulent deal, committing $1.2 billion to Sibton Switch for Ghana Retail Payments Systems Infrastructure, which encompasses the mobile payment systems interoperability.
Sibton Switch’s bid, in the first place, was thirty-three times higher than the next highest bidder and worse of all, the Public Procurement Authority approved the project, provided BoG’s liability was to be GH¢300,000.00. The then governor allowed the bank’s liability to be raised to GH¢2.6 billion or $478 million. The project was going to be under Sibton Switch who was going to build, operate and transfer it after fifteen years.
There was also grand bribery in theSibton Switch deal, with BoG’s project manager on the project, Mr Gilbert Addy, receiving bribes of GH¢410,000.00 and $500,000.00 to make sure everything went in favour of Sibton Switch. The question is, if such a lower ranking staff could be bribed this, then what about those at the top? Meanwhile the ruling NDC, party and government gleefully watched on.
When Governor Addison took over in April, 2017, he terminated the one-sided contract. Dr. Johnson P. Asiama, the then deputy governor during the time this deal was fraudulently struck, was at his wits end, defending the deal and condemning politicians for poking their noses into an internal affair between bank and customer. Putting up a spirited defense to this dodgy contract to Sibton Switch.
He had this to say, “It is politicians taking over an issue which should be in the domain of the Central Bank. Politicians, back off this issue. There is no criminality. There is no role of government…”Today, the NDC is refusing to heed to what its own said, that politicians must leave BoG alone.
On April 9, 2018, Sibton Switch filed a request for arbitration with the London Court International Arbitration (LCIA) against the Bank of Ghana for breaching the Master Agreement of the Ghana Retail Payment Systems Infrastructure entered into by the two parties; with thegreat hope among the NDC members behind this shady deal, that if $1.2 billion was lost to them, then at least, $478 million will do for compensation. Sibton Switch lost the case and was made to pay legal fees to Bank of Ghana.
I believe, this is the reason the NDC hates Governor Addisson so much so that it wants him disgracefully removed from office by any means possible. The $1.2 billion interoperability project actually took $4.5 million to execute under this current NPP government.
The $1.1955 billion could have gone to the NDC, but this was denied them by Dr. Ernest Addison, who ended up saving Ghana from wasting that money. Because of this, the NDC in opposition, cleverly hide its role in this corrupt deal, and is rather determined to have the governor and his deputies get sacked from office.
I hope this feature article is up for discussion today and before the NDC march on the streets of Accra, tomorrow or any other day, the party must come and justify the Sibton Switch deal.
By Hon. Daniel Dugan
