Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has urged the Ghanaian public to abstain from criticizing the leadership of the Bank of Ghana.
The Central Bank’s leadership has faced scrutiny due to the GH¢60 billion impairment loss incurred in 2022.
In an opinion piece authored by Ken Ofori-Atta, he emphasized that despite these losses, rigorous measures will be implemented to rehabilitate the Bank’s balance sheet in the medium term.
He clarified that this is aimed at ensuring the Bank of Ghana operates efficiently.
“As the Minister for Finance, I do have opinions about the reforms needed to strengthen the governance of many financial institutions including the Bank of Ghana. But this requires a positive and sober national debate on the governance structure; should we, for example, revisit a separate chairmanship and governorship (such was the case prior to governor Dr. Agama’s years) and whether our democracy and institutional experience support Governors playing both board leadership and management roles as enshrined in our laws,” Ofori-Atta shared.
“We also need to have the discourse for policy clarity on what the operational independence of the Central Bank implies, especially in a Lower-Middle Income Country and transformational economies such as ours. I do personally believe that Central Banks must have independence in executing their monetary policy mandate especially if it is based on a price target, where the government sets the price targets, and Central Banks, in our case, BoG, independently uses its operational tools to achieve it”, he pointed out.
The Finance Minister, on the other hand, came to the defense of Governor Addison, who has faced public criticism recently, including calls for his resignation.“Governor Addison, just like me, has faced major economic hurdles since 2017, inheriting a derailed International Monetary Fund programme and a highly impaired and ethically strained financial industry from our predecessors, having to navigate the serious revenue shocks on the back of COVID-19 and distortions to our supply chain induced by both Covid-19 and international geopolitics”.