Former President John Dramani Mahama has disclosed that the governor of the Bank of Ghana(BoG) is using the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) as a cover-up for mismanaging the central bank.
Mr Mahama’s comments follow the Bank of Ghana’s explanation that GH¢53.1 billion out of the GH¢60 billion losses it posted in its 2022 financial results were a direct result of the government’s domestic debt restructuring exercise.
A statement from the BoG on August 10 said the DDEP, which was a major plank of the corrective action required for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, did not achieve the required target.
The target was for the stock of government debt to be halved from 105 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 55 per cent of GDP by 2028.
“Despite the losses inflicted on households and banks, the threshold of 55 per cent of GDP was not met”.
“The Bank of Ghana was used to close the gap to enable Ghana to meet the debt threshold that qualified Ghana for the IMF programme. The Bank of Ghana, therefore, acted as a loss absorber,” the statement added.
However, in a Facebook post on Thursday, August 10, the former president criticised the BoG boss and the finance minister for the country’s economic woes.
He accused the finance minister of damaging the economy and using Covid-19 and Ukraine/Russia war as cover-ups, while the governor of the BoG is also using the DDEP as an excuse for the losses posted in 2022