Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has dismissed the minority claim that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) should have obtained clearance from Parliament before lending to government above the 5% budget deficit financing.

According to him, there is no law that mandates the BoG to report its daily activities to Parliament.

Rather, he said, the law only mandates the Central Bank to report foreign exchange receipts to Parliament, and the BoG has thus always complied to this provision.

Reacting to the minority clams, Mr. Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the Minority Leader, Cassiel Ato Forson should have known better because he has held the position of Deputy Minister of Finance before and knows the operations of the Bank of Ghana.

“So if you politicise issues of the BoG, it is not good for the country. There is no law that mandates the BoG to report its daily activities to Parliament. The law only mandates the BoG to report foreign exchange receipts to Parliament and the BoG has always complied with this provision”.

Explaining more, the Majority Leader said “constitution says that if you pass any law that is inconsistent with the constitution, that law is null and void. Its either the minority are over exaggerating issues or have not had time to examine the facts of the matter”.

He pointed out that the response from the BoG addresses all the inconsistencies and falsehoods peddled against the institution.

“Yes, the country went through some difficulties which required that the BoG must intervene. If not for the international reserves built by the BoG, which was close to $10 billion, we would have really suffered. The BoG supported the country with about 4 billion of its 10 billion international reserves to support the situation”, he added.

Citing Sri Lanka as an example, he said the South East Asian country found itself in the same economic situation like GHana but because it’s Central Bank was not in a position to support, their situation got worse and have still not been able to recover.

“If the BoG supports the country to recover, it is unfair to call for the head of the governor because they made losses. The concerns of the minority is misplaced”, he mentioned.

BoG’s new head office building

The Majority Leader again said the BoG has already been in parliament to explain why it is building a new head office.

He stressed that the West African Monetary Zone has been relocated to Ghana and it operates within the precincts of BoG but that has not been possible because of the limited space at the Central Bank.

“So the building of the new head office is expected to address this as well”, he added.

Similarly, Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the countries in West Africa have thrown their weight behind Ghana to host the headquarters of the secretariat to deal with the agenda towards a single currency, adding “so the building of the new head office is also expected to help in this direction”.