The Minority Caucus in Parliament has described as unfortunate attempts by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to justify the money it printed for the government in 2021 and 2022, which they (The minority) said was in contravention of Section 30 of the BoG (Amendment) Act, 2016 (ACT 918).
The BoG in its 2022 annual report and financial statements said it printed GH¢35 billion in 2021 and GH¢42 billion in 2022 to finance the government.
But the Minority in a statement issued and signed by the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, in response to a statement issued by the BoG dated August 9, 2023 to justify the printing of the money for the government described the central bank’s action as a breach of its governing law.
The statement by the BoG was in response to the Minority’s press conference held on August 8, 2022 to raise concerns on the losses recorded by the BoG captured in the central bank’s 2022 report and financial statement.
Minority response
The Minority said the amount of monies printed by BoG for the government both in 2021 and 2022 far exceeded the legally acceptable threshold of five per cent of the previous fiscal years’ total revenue.
“This the Bank did without cognisance 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 five per cent threshold and/or the setting of a new limit of government’s borrowing,” the Minority said.
“Indeed, the facts show that BoG acted as law unto itself by wilfully engaging in the illegal printing of monies to finance the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government both in 2021 and 2022,” it said.
The Minority also described as unacceptable the justification by the BoG for the losses of GH¢60.8 billion and the negative equity of GH¢55.1 billion it recorded in the year 2022.
“This illegal conduct of the Governor of BoG constitutes a criminal offence 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,” It stated.
“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 GH¢100 and GH¢200 notes,” the Minority observed.
“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 per cent,” it added
The Minority said “as a direct consequence of the illegal printing of monies by the Bank of Ghana, the rate of inflation in the country spiralled to hyper levels last year, when Ghana recorded a record-high inflation rate of 54.1 per cent 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.”
“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 equalisations,” it said.