By: Doreen Ampofo
The Minority in Parliament has resurrected its push for the resignation of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana by formally writing to him to designate an appropriate time to present a petition for his removal.
The group in October, marched to the premises of the Central Bank, seeking the removal of Dr. Ernest Addison from office. However, their attempt to present the petition was thwarted as the BoG Governor did not meet them but instead assigned the Head of Security to receive the petition. The Minority rejected the move and vowed to return to the BOG at a time when they are able to present their petition to the Governor himself.
They accused the BOG Governor of gross recklessness after it recorded 60.8-billion-cedi loss in its Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2022.
A statement signed by Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson requested the BOG Governor to respond to their letter by next week, 18th December, to personally receive their petition.
The statement begins by recounting the October 3 march where the governor was unavailable to meet the minority MP’s. It said the MP’s were not only demanding the resignation of the Governor but also his two deputies and the entire board of the Bank of Ghana.
The Minority caucus said before the protest march, they had made it abundantly clear to Ghanaians that handing over their petition to Dr Ernest Addison personally was also a part of their demands. However, since he failed to show up at the terminating point, they informed him through the news media that they shall come back to present their petition to him personally.
The statement goes ahead to list their reasons for the petition. According to the minority, the Governor failed woefully to use monetary policy to check inflation in the country which at one point stood at over 50% as well as the depreciation of the Ghana Cedi. They also accused him of supervising the collapse of the financial sector of the country resulting in all banks posting colossal losses last year. It said interest rate hikes have made Ghana unattractive for businesses to spend and create jobs, leaving many businesses to collapse.
It said due to the way it says is mismanagement, the BOG cannot in the medium term be relied upon to carry out its role as banker of last resort for government and the banking sector, prompting the Finance Minister to request Parliament to approve a sum of $750 million to support the ailing banks. It adds that there is evidence of wanton dissipation of the Bank of Ghana’s resources through a series of wasteful and extravagant procurements, including the contract for the construction of the new Bank of Ghana Head Office building at Ridge in Accra.
The Minority said contrary to the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act 918), the governor illegally and excessively printed the sum of GHS80 billion which caused the depletion of Ghana’s external reserves of $6.3 billion, and resulted in the unprecedented depreciation of the Cedi as it fell from GHS6/$1 to over GHS15/$1 while inflation rose to hyper levels of 54.1% last year.
It concludes that the unprecedented has pushed over one million Ghanaians into extreme poverty, a reason for their petition for its removal.
