The operations of a deregulated financial system in Ghana make it impossible for the Central Bank to regulate the interest rates charged by commercial banks. This is according to business and financial analyst, Gordon Newlove Asamoah, who was reacting to a call by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) for the government to help keep the private sector in business through regulation of interest rates. Businesses have decried the high level of interest rates maintained by financial institutions, especially with the downward review of the Bank of Ghana’s Policy Rate. President of the GNCCI, Seth Adjei Baah, had stated that grooming businesses for national economic growth requires that the interest rates are regulated, instead of controlled. But Mr. Asamoah, a lecturer at the KNUST Business School, says “it would be difficult for the Central Bank to intervene. The only thing the Central Bank or the government can do is to appeal to the banks to reduce the rate”. He emphasized that such reduction would be determined by competition among the financial institutions and other factors like loan default rate, the risk involved in project financing and general economic conditions. “When the government is not paying contractors; the contractors go for loans and they cannot pay the banks, then the banks would have to find a way of recouping those loans that have gone bad, thereby increasing the interest rates so that they can more from those who’ll pay”, Mr. Asamoah observed. He has asked businesses to look out for other sources of financing like equity and partnerships to remain operations.