Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has shot down claims by the minority that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) should have consulted Parliament before lending to the government above the 5% budget deficit financing.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu indicated that the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, should have known better because he has held the position of Deputy Minister of Finance before and knows the operations of the Bank of Ghana.
“So if you politicize issues of the BoG, it is not good for the country. There is no law that mandates the BoG to report its daily activities to Parliament. The law only mandates the BoG to report foreign exchange receipts to Parliament, and the BoG has always complied with this provision,” he said.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu explained that “the constitution says that if you pass any law that is inconsistent with the constitution, that law is null and void. It’s either the minority are exaggerating issues or have not had time to examine the facts of the matter”.
He pointed out that the response from the BoG addresses all the inconsistencies and falsehoods peddled against the institution.
“Yes, the country went through some difficulties which required that the BoG must intervene. If not for the international reserves built by the BoG, which were close to $10 billion, we would have suffered. The BoG supported the country with about 4 billion of its 10 billion international reserves to support the situation,” he stated.
Using Sri Lanka as a case study, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said the country was in the same economic situation as Ghana. However, because its central bank was not in a position to support it, the situation got worse, and it has still not been able to recover.
“If the BoG supports the country to recovery, it is unfair to call for the head of the governor because they made losses. The concerns of the minority are misplaced,” he maintained.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu further explained that the BoG has already been in Parliament to lay out the details to justify the construction of a new head office.
He stressed that the West African Monetary Zone(WAMZ) has been relocated to Ghana and is supposed to operate within the precincts of BoG. However, that has not been possible because of the limited space at the central bank.
“So the building of the new head office is expected to address this as well”, he added.