Minority Faults Ofori Atta’s Defence Of BoG
The Minority in Parliament has punched holes into the defensive arguments put up by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta in favour of the country’s Central Bank.
In a press statement the Minority Leader in Parliament, Cassiel Ato Forson, tackled the increase in the Bank’s assets, doubled Gross Domestic Product (GDP), migration from monetary policy towards price targets, shifts from direct targets of money supply to interest rates as operational targets as reported by the minister in a recent defence he mounted for the Bank.
His defence comes as the Minority are pushing for the Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his deputies to resign.
Hon Forson contended that the increase in assets between 2016 and 2022 from GHS53 billion in 2016 to GHS125.97 billion in 2022 was largely driven by the illegal monetary financing of government; in other words, illegal lending to government.
“The Minister again used nominal GDP figures to argue that the size of GDP had more than doubled in value from GHS219.6 billion in 2016 to GHS610.2 billion in 2022, without adjusting for the impact of inflation within the same period. The Minister must realize that nominal values will always rise, hence the right thing to do is to express these in real terms.
“On the watch of this Minister, real GDP growth slowed between 2018 and 2020 and only recovered slightly in 2021 due mainly to revenues from the three oil fields they inherited as well as the massive COVID-19 revenue inflows, and not due to any special expertise of the Minister. Again, the Minister’s management of the economy worsened in 2022 and it is projected to further deteriorate at the end of 2023 with a growth projection of 1.5%.”
According to Hon Forson, the current legal and corporate governance regime at the Bank of Ghana is not the problem but Ken Ofori-Atta.
He asserted that history will remember “this Minister of Finance and the government’s Economic Mismanagement Team headed by Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia for taking Ghana to the IMF in an ambulance.”
Read the Full Statement Below:
