Tell Ghanaians why you couldn’t account for over $11bn of remittances – Atuahene to BoG

Banking Consultant, Dr Richmond Atuahene has insisted that the Bank of Ghana is under-reporting forex inflows from inward remittances, leaving over $11 billion unaccounted for between 2019 and 2022.

In a fresh rejoinder to the central bank’s recent rebuttals concerning receipts from remittances, the Banking Consultant stressed that the apex bank must explain to Ghanaians how the Auditor General’s report on foreign exchange receipts and payments is at variance with that reported by the World Bank.

“The bone of contention has never been about Ghana’s declining remittance but rather the increasing under-reporting of inward remittances. In fact, the central bank has consistently failed to address the gap or discrepancies between the World Bank data on inward remittances and that of the 23 authorised dealer banks data for the period between 2019 to 2023, as well as inflows passing through Fintech companies captured in its 2023 annual report. The key question is, why is there a huge gap between BoG’s data reported by the Auditor General and that recorded by the World Bank?” he quizzed.

In an interview with Channel One Business, the Director of Communications at the Bank of Ghana, Bernard Otabil, explained that the difference in reporting scope is the primary reason for the higher figures reported by the World Bank compared to those reported by the Bank of Ghana.

“The problem is a lack of understanding of the issues. The figures they have captured are the BoP that we published. What they got wrong is that the figure you see is a net position, which captures both inflows and outflows. But if you look at the inflows, which we have, they are largely aligned with the World Bank’s.”

“Without this understanding, we will see people put out misleading information. Our figures are aligned and there is no cause for alarm,” he added.

However, according to Dr Richmond Atuahene, this claim by the central bank is FALSE as the bank’s own data reported by the Auditor General records inflows but not net positions.

“2018 and 2019 [AG’s report] confirmed the various transactions have all been grossed up but not the Net position,” he stated.