A Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Dr. Lloyd Amoah, has said that the way that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) handled the emergency economic situation in 2022 by supporting the government made sense to him.
He stated that if others think the action of the central bank was inappropriate, a section of Ghanaians also believes that the BoG’s action was right given the circumstances in which the country found itself at the time.
Dr Amoah said these while responding to a comment that an economist Dr. Theo Aheampong made under his post on Facebook.
Dr Amaoh had written that “BoG has released a presser. That should clarify a lot and staunch the speculations.”
But in a response to his comment, Dr Theo Acheampong said “The BoG has a lot of questions to answer for allowing itself to be used as the piggybank of the government. We understand the context of the difficult financing circumstances but some of the explanations offered for the actions taken in 2022 don’t make much sense! It has lost its operational independence. We can’t run away from that.”
Replying to him, Dr Amoah said “you are assuming it acted contrary to its mandate? You cannot make a fetish of putative operation independence in a crises. It does not make sense to you. It makes sense to others alas. We cannot purport to know how to run the central bank better than those who have been at it for over three decades.”
Dr Theo Acheampong stated again that “crises caused by whom? My point is that the Bank of Ghana can’t escape blame for the crisis. Yes, the big blame lies at the finance ministry (Treasury) but the central bank also takes part of the putrid mess! C’est la vie.”
In another reply, Dr Amaoh said “I have said that the Econ Mgt Team has been a disaster from when the debt default hit. But if we want to take on BOG let us be guided by the facts. That is all.”
It is recalled that the Minority in Parliament accused the Bank of lacking reasonable justification for the substantial amounts of money printed in 2021 and 2022 to finance the government.
They contend that the action of the BoG is in direct breach of the governing law.
They note that the printed amounts—GHS 35 billion in 2021 and GHS 42 billion in 2022—are far beyond the legally acceptable threshold of 5% of the previous fiscal year’s total revenue.
The statement maintains that the Bank of Ghana’s actions in printing money to finance the government’s needs in 2021 and 2022 were in direct violation of the law, asserting that such conduct constitutes a criminal offense under Section 67 of the Bank of Ghana Act.