Deputy Minister of Finance John Kumah has described claims by the Minority that the Bank of Ghana has printed some 22 billion new cedis as absolutely baseless.
The statement, he said, is without foundation and charged Ghanaians to take the claims with a pinch of salt.
He averred that accusing the Minister of Finance of hiding that information in an appendix in the Mid-Year Budget (Page 97, Appendix A) is simply disingenuous because the budget is a public document and available for everybody to read.
“So how is it that he picked up this document, read page 97 and then said the information has been hidden?”
“What is the meaning of that? The Finance Minister gave you this document and you found out there is information on Bank of Ghana about GH¢22 billion and your position is that it is hidden.”
Mr. Kumah was reacting to claims by Ranking Member of the Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, that the Bank of Ghana illegally printed GH¢22 billion without recourse to Parliament.
The Ranking member’s pronouncements, he said, clearly show the National Democratic Congress (NDC) members lack the capacity to read and understand and therefore dislike reading.
“They think that they don’t have to read to know the content of this document. So if they read and find an information
in what we have given them, then it means we have hidden it, please how do you explain that?”
“Nobody should impugn the integrity of the Finance Ministry or the Minister of this government for information we have given out to the public.”
He argued the Bank of Ghana Act allows the central government and the BoG to operate overdraft basis and therefore within the laws of the country.
The Deputy Minister noted that on Ghana’s own balance sheet, BoG can give an overdraft to the government as a loan, which can be repaid within a specified period.
This, he said, is not the first time any government has done that and stressed when Ato Forson was Deputy Minister, the Bank of Ghana supported the Ministry of Finance and the then government on the same arrangement within the Bank of Ghana Act.
He questioned whether the overdrafts that BoG gives governments have been reclassified as printing money.
That, he said, is not economics and exposes the NDC Minority’s incompetence and lack of appreciation of the situation.
Bank of Ghana, he stressed, has not printed any money.
[4:18 pm, 26/07/2022] Jeffrey Graphic Designer: Ok
