The Minority Leader of Parliament, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has demanded the resignation of the the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, his deputy and the bank’s Board.
In a recent NDC press conference, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader of Parliament, accused the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) of breaching key provisions within the BoG Amendment Act, leading to dire economic consequences for the nation.
Dr. Forson emphasized that the Governor’s actions were not a slight oversight but rather a deliberate attempt to flout regulations.
“The Governor has breached a lot and section 30 & 60 of the BoG Amendment Act is clear on this matter. He can only print to support the Gov’t expenditure using 5% of the previous year’s revenue as the benchmark. Unfortunately, the Governor did 7.2% of GDP representing about 30% of previous year’s revenue. So he has not just breached it slightly but you can see that it was a deliberate intent,” he said.
He explained that this situation had not only led to economic instability but also pushed around 850,000 Ghanaians below the poverty line, while many others were forced from middle-income status to low-income brackets.
“The Governor has messed us all up big time and imposed an illegal inflation tax on the people. It is a tax and also illegal because it doesn’t have legislation. We can’t continue to allow this thing to happen and what we are seeking now is to secure our country,” he stressed.
While the Governor’s actions have garnered widespread criticism, Dr. Forson pointed out that the power to prosecute individuals who breach the law lies with the Attorney General, not Parliament.
In light of these dire circumstances, Dr. Forson called for the BoG Governor’s immediate resignation. “He should first leave the scene because he has shown that he cannot stand firm for the people of Ghana. We have now seen a Governor who has turned into a printer. He owns a printing press and all he does is to print money. We cannot stand that so we are asking him to leave,” he said.
He emphasized that the Governor’s behaviour, characterized by a seeming focus on printing money, demonstrated an unacceptable departure from his responsibilities.
This comes after the BoG recorded a loss of GHS60.8billion due to the impairment of the Government of Ghana’s securities holdings of ¢48.45 billion, the impairment of loans and advances granted to quasi-government and financial institutions amounting to ¢6.12 billion and the depreciation of the local currency resulting in a net exchange loss of ¢5.27 billion.
The loss was occasioned by the Government of Ghana Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
