Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Isaac Adongo, has asserted that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) printed an amount surpassing the GH¢44 billion recently disclosed as the government’s budget financing.
During a Good Morning Ghana interview on Monday, February 13, 2023, the MP stated that the figure mentioned by the BoG does not account for the additional money printed for the government in 2021.
According to him, the central bank has printed nearly GH¢80 billion to fund the budget of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.
“The situation is even worse than the GH¢44 billion, you know why. They use this method of securitisation. What they do is that at the end of the year instead of doing an overdraft that will be accumulating, they will violate the law by not repaying the money but rather transform it into a loan that will sit on the books in the name of the government.
“We end 2021 will GH¢35 billion of central bank lending, so that is already sitting on the books of Bank of Ghana as total exposure to government at the end of 2021.
“Then they start from zero in 2022 and it was GH¢44 billion at the end of the year. That one too will now be scrutinised to add to the GH¢35 that is already sitting there and it will now be almost GH¢80 billion that the government has borrowed from the Bank of Ghana,” he said.
Isaac Adongo highlighted that despite the government injecting more money into the system, the economy is not improving due to the alleged embezzlement of funds by government officials.
His remarks were in response to the central bank’s justification for printing over GH¢44 billion to finance the government’s 2022 budget, which exceeds the required threshold and necessitates parliamentary approval.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) claimed it had no choice but to support the government as its access to the International Capital Market was closed, and the domestic market was also facing challenges.
In a statement issued on Thursday, February 9, 2023, the central bank stated that its actions were not in violation, as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2018, which had been suspended by the Ghanaian Parliament, had not been reinstated.
The BoG’s statement came after facing heavy criticism from some Ghanaians following a Bloomberg report indicating that it printed GH¢41.9 billion for the government in 2022.
Broadcaster Dr. Randy Abbey, in response to the Bloomberg report, expressed concern over the BoG’s conduct, stating that as the regulator of the country’s financial sector, it appears to be disregarding all the rules within the sector.
“The level of seeming recklessness and lawlessness, and irresponsibility when it comes to the operation of the central bank and the lack of transparency is getting worrying,” he said.