Govt led BoG into a deep ditch – MP

Eric Opoku, a member of parliament (MP) representing Asunafo South Constituency, has backed the NDC’s demand that Dr. Ernest Addison, governor of the Bank of Ghana, and his two deputies quit.

On the Dwaso Nsem show on Adom FM, he declared that the opposition party’s 21-day deadline was sufficient.

According to him, the Central Bank’s failure to fulfill its two main responsibilities makes the request for the governor to resign justified.

“Since the GetFund was setup under Rawlings time, he did not use it as collateral for a loan to increase the country’s debt, President Kufuor, President Mills and President Mahama all did same. Only Nana Addo has been using it and adding up to the country’s debt.

“I believe the 21 days which is equivalent to three weeks is enough. All over the world the work of the Central Bank is that it ensures we have price stabilization, financial stabilization which allows persons have easy access to loans and all other banks are run at ease. BoG has failed at doing these two things,” he said.

He claims that Ghana’s recent financial crisis is partly due to the bank’s poor management.

According to him, the government abused the stabilization and emergency funds, finally bankrupted the Bank of Ghana by demanding further local currency injections, and suffered losses of about GHc 60 billion.

“When government exceeds the 5% threshold for loans given by the Bank of Ghana, it is supposed to write a letter to Parliament and the Finance Minister to notify us. We didn’t hear anything from them

“Bank of Ghana has written off GH48b debt government owes them and now Ghanaians owe the debt which contradicts a law on writing off debts which allow only Ghanaians to approve of any write-offs carried out by the Bank of Ghana,” he added.