Dr. Abdul Tiah Kabiru Maham, an Economist and Technical Advisor at the Office of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, says the significant loss revealed in the Bank of Ghana report does not necessarily indicate a poor performance of the central bank.

Dr. Kabiru Maham explained that given that the central bank had recorded successive profits in the past years, attention should be focused on what actually might have gone wrong this time.

According to him, to conclude that the huge loss of over GH₵60 billion was occasioned by the BoG doing something untoward, as alleged by a section of the public, the outfit’s mandate in accordance with the law must be referenced. If the BoG is found to be in contravention of the laws, it would then be justified for people to call for the heads of the officials there.

The economist argued that considering the mandates and functions of the central bank, the profit and loss report is just an “icing on the cake” and not a yardstick for measuring its performance.

“If you go to Section 3 of the Bank of Ghana Act, it clearly gives us the mandate of the Bank; One, to ensure that we have price stability. As amended, the statutes also added relevant provisions promoting government economic policies and ensuring financial stability. These are the three main objects of the bank and if you read this together with section 6, if you look at their functions, nowhere in the function of the central bank has the posting of profit and loss report been a measure of the central bank performance. Profit and loss reports are only icing on the cake,” he said on Newsfile.

Dr. Kabiru Maham said further that before the recent report, people had never been interested in whether or not the bank had been making a profit. Although people might be justified for being alarmed in the wake of the loss, it is also important to trace the cause, he said. According to him, despite facing some challenges from 2016, the bank managed to record some decent profits and was constantly supporting government initiatives.

“If you have a fiscal year that the central bank is posting some loss of 60 billion, every right-thinking Ghanaian would be concerned. What has happened so dramatically that the central bank would be posting this loss? Historically, the central bank has been giving us reports of what they have been doing. …. In 2019, the central bank reported a profit of 1.6 billion, in 2020, they reported profit of another 1,5 billion, in 2021, another profit of 1.3 billion or so. You would ask, what has happened that over the last three years before 2022, the central bank was making profit then all of a sudden they have huge debts recorded?”

He says citizens “need to be sober and reflect” on the genuine cause of the loss in order to avert unnecessary blame on the government and Governor of the BoG.

The BoG and its Governor have been the subjects of discussions lately following its report of GH₵60.8 billion loss. The report also revealed that the central bank is spending a sum of $250 million to construct a new headquarters. The report has since been met with outrage from the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Ghanaians at large. The NDC is demanding the immediate resignation of the Governor of the BoG, Dr. Ernest Addison on accusations of gross mismanagement.

Meanwhile, the BoG in a statement responding to the outrage from the public has indicated that the loss was hugely incurred as a result of government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme in 2022.