North Tongu lawmaker, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has told the Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu that the opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) did not concoct any story against the Bank of Ghana (BoG) for which he is accusing the NDC legislators of giving the governor a bad name to hang him.
Mr Ablakwa said the matters against the central bank that have been at the centre of discussion, were matters discovered by the accounting and auditing firm Deloitte in its audit report of the Bank for 2022.
“These matters are there for everyone to read,” he added.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Monday October 9, Mr Ablakwa said “The Majority leader’s statements are really unfortunate and are not borne out of the facts. Let us be clear, the matters that have been raised, very grave matters that have been raised against the Governor and his two deputies, are not matters that the Minority or the NDC caucus has concocted.
“This is not the matter of giving the dog a bad name to hang it, this is the matter of the dog having been caught, the dog having given himself a name. We are talking about an audit that has been carried out by an internationally reputable firm, Deloitte.
“The Financial statement of the Bank of Ghana for 2022 and the attached audits are there for all of us to read, it is a statement of fact that auditors have discovered that the BoG has made losses to the tune of GHS60.8billion. It is a statement of fact that the BoG is insolvent, it’s bankrupt.”
His comments come after the Majority Leader in Parliament told the Minority that they could have invited the Governor, Dr Ernest Addison to Parliament to answer questions rather than embarking on a street protest.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu expressed the view that the protest by the Minority smacked of prejudging the Governor, hence any motion that will be moved by the Minority to drag Dr Addison to Parliament will not be supported by the Majority side of the House.
“We are Members of Parliament, we could have invited the Governor to come and talk about the issues that are not clear to us. You go on a demonstration and organize a press conference against the man, then you come back to Parliament to move the motion [to invite him], do you want me to support that?
“Now, you have made up your mind that whatever has been done by [the Governor] is inappropriate, you are not going to countenance it, so if he comes to explain the issues, are you going to take it or jettison it?” the Suame lawmaker told TV3’s Evelyn Tengmaa in an interview on Monday, October 9.
The Minority was demanding Dr Addison’s resignation together with that of his two deputies – Dr Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Elsie Addo Awadzi over mismanagement.
The caucus initially gave the three governors 21 days to resign, but after the ultimatum elapsed, decided to hit the streets and march to the headquarters of the central bank to demand their resignation.
The NDC Members of Parliament were later incensed by the allocation of over $200 million for the construction of an ultra-modern headquarters in Accra at a time the Bank had recorded losses in its financial records.
They also accused the Bank of writing off government debt to the tune of GH¢48.4 million and overprinting cash for expenditure by the government against the Bank of Ghana Act.
Ningo-Prampram lawmaker Samuel Nartey George told journalists during the protest that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament invited Dr Addison to appear before it to answer questions relating to the operations of the Bank. However, the Governor showed up just three times in the last seven years.
“Ernest Addison is a coward, we had stated earlier that we were sure he wouldn’t show up.
“For seven years, I have been on the Public Accounts Committee, the Public Accounts Committee invites the Bank of Ghana twice a year, but he has appeared only three times in seven years, so it is not strange.”
Responding to his claim, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said “I don’t know what he is saying, you don’t go out there and throw dust into the eyes of the people and give the dog a bad name so that you can hang it, it is not right.”
Regarding the demonstration, Dr Addison told Central Banking that the protest dubbed #OccupyBoGProtest “was completely unnecessary” and neither he nor his two deputies intend to step down.
“The Minority in Parliament have many channels to channel their grievances in civilised societies, not through demonstrations in the streets as hooligans,” Dr Addison told Central Banking in the interview on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.
On the building of the state-of-art headquarters, the Governor said the decision was taken in 2019 “when the bank was profitable and appropriated some of its profits for the new headquarters”.
“It was not a decision taken during a crisis.”