By Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Government has prayed Parliament to allow some amendments to be done to the report by the Finance Committee in Parliament which led to the approval of the syndicated loan to support 2022 Budget from African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in the sum of Seven Hundred and Fifty Million United States Dollars ($750,000,000.00).
The report as adapted on last Wednesday has it that, Ghana’s International reserve has declined from US$9bn to about US$3bn “with a monthly demand of over US$600 million, the reserves of the central bank may be exhausted in few months if urgent steps are not taken to shore up the countries reserve”.
According to him, the report read on the floor by the Chairman “the Government’s intention to raise funds from the domestic bond markets did not also yield the desired result. Consequently, the economy is presently challenged with rising inflation, rising interest rates, exchange rate depreciation and increasing energy cost. These challenges are further exacerbated by the rapidly dwindling reserves of the Bank of Ghana which has declined from US$9bn to about US$3bn”.
This report has allegedly not gone down well with the Government for that matter the Central bank hence the decision by same Chairman of Finance Committee of Parliament, Kwaku Agyeman Kwarteng (MP) on Friday 22nd July 2022 on the floor of parliament brought a statement in an attempt to correct his earlier report.
The statement on ‘the international reserves positions as reported in the committee’s report of 19th July 2022’ said, “19th July 2022, I laid a report on behalf of the Finance Committee before this house on the loan facility agreement between the Government of Ghana and African Export-Import Bank for a maximum of $750 million to finance capital and growth-related expenditures in the 2022 Budget Statement. In that report, we reported that the international reserves of the Bank of Ghana had declined from US$9 billion to US$3 billion”.
“Mr. Speaker, this was an error. It was an unfortunate oversight”, Kwaku Agyeman Kwarteng admitted.
He went on to say, According to the Bank of Ghana, the Gross International Reserves of the country was US$9.70 billion at the close of December 2021. This declined to US$7.68 billion at the close of June 2022.
He stressed the fact that, “in terms of Net International Reserves, the country closed December 2021 with US$6.08 billion. This position declined to US$3.58 billion at the close of June 2022. The error is regretted, and I request the Clerk at Table to ensure that all the records are accordingly corrected.
Meanwhile, the Minority side of the House has raised issues with correction being sought, as they supported the finance minister for disclosing the accurate figure, captured in the Committees’ report submitted to the plenary last Wednesday. The press conference was addressed by the Minority ranking Member on Finance, Isaac Adongo and minority members on the Finance Committee accused their Chairman, Kwaku Agyeman Kwarteng of trying to do damage control and cover-up after the report exposed the Central bank and Government Economic Management Team.
The house is yet to accept the statement to amend the earlier report before the house.
