Ayariga Petitions OSP To Probe BoG Governor Over New Headquarters

The Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga has petitioned the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Ernest Addison and other officials over the construction of a new headquarters.

The legislator suspects corruption came into play in the process and thus calls for an investigation by the OSP.

Other persons he believes will be of interest in the investigations are the two deputies of the BoG, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Mrs Elsie Addo Awadzi; ten members of the Board of Directors; the project consultants and; the Chief Executive Officer of Messrs Goldkey Properties Ltd, the contractor.

Earlier in an open letter to Dr Addison, Ayariga accused the bank officials of colluding with the contractors to overprice the “project with a possible view to obtaining personal gain”.

In his petition to the OSP, he said, “The Bank of Ghana had originally priced the project at USD100,857,924.48 for 73,000sq.m but got the project awarded to Messrs. Goldkcy Properties Limited. in’the same year, at a contract sum of USD121,807,8517.94. A subsequent variation of the scope of works of about 36.9% increase saw a project cost escalation of 84% increase NN Melt has resulted in the about 107.737sq.m building project now costing USD222,799,760.55.”

His petition comes after the Bank’s reluctance to furnish him with details of the project- through a Right to Information request he filed- under the pretext of “national security considerations”.

Protest
The Minority in Parliament was joined by Civil Society Organizations (CSO), Progressive Forces as well as thousands of protesters on October 3 to demand the resignation of top officials of the Central Bank including Governor Addison. This was after they defied an ultimatum to resign in August.

The call sprung from what the groups alleged was an illegal printing of about GHC 80 billion between 2021 and 2022 by the Central Bank.

Additionally, they registered their disapproval at the reported GHC 60.8 billion loss incurred by the Bank in 2022 which has resulted in over GHC 50 billion in negative equity.

Addison Absence
The protest though peaceful, was short of expectations as the Governor failed to show up for the petition of the protesters.

He sent out a man who identified himself as Kwame Asare Boateng, the Director of Security at the BoG to do it on his behalf.

According to him, Mr Addison was in a meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and could not avail himself of it- an excuse that infuriated the leadership to return home with the petition.

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Cassiel Ato Forson, deemed it as a disrespect to the people of Ghana as he insisted on handing the petition out to him in person.

“We will not present our petition. We will go and come back again. We will come back again. We will come back and demand to see him in person. The crowd you’ve seen is just the beginning…If he thinks that the IMF is more important than the people of Ghana, {we will make him know} he is here because of the people of Ghana. We will come after him. Until we see him, we not stop.”

Hooliganism
Later in an interview with Central Banking, Dr Addison likened the protest to hooliganism.

He indicated that the Minority in Parliament who spearheaded the demonstration could have used the right channels to deliver their concerns but overlooked them all for hooliganism.

“The demonstration yesterday was completely unnecessary. The Minority (MPs) in Parliament have many channels to channel their grievances in civilised societies, not through demonstrations in the streets as hooligans.”