The Bank of Ghana has maintained its benchmark policy rate. The Monetary Policy Committee which has been meeting to review the economy since last Monday decided to leave the rate unchanged at 13.5 percent. The policy rate is usually indicative of the rate at which commercial banks can borrow from the Central Bank. Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur told journalists at a news conference the rate was maintained because of some unforeseen factors likely to impact government’s projections. Joy FM’s George Wiafe was at the MPC briefing and reports that the MPC noted that interactions with businesses as contained in the Bank of Ghana composite index of economic activities suggest that growth may suffer. The committee explained that the decline in economic activity will make it difficult for government to realize required revenues. This, it said, largely informed its decision to leave the rate unchanged at 13.5 percent. Though it said the government appears to be making some gains with respect to its spending and managed to record a narrow deficit on cash basis, it is still worried about the pressure on government’s fiscal outlook on the back of renewed wage pressures from the public sector. On the banking front, there was some good news as the sector appears to be increasing credit to households and reducing the loans that have gone bad. But the Governor was not too impressed with the response of the banks to the policy rate cuts over the period. The committee however remains optimistic that inflation, which has witnessed a continuous decline over the past months will go down further in October and even further into 2011. Source: Joy Business/Ghana