His comments come following the tussle between the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Minority caucus in Parliament after the Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson accused the central bank of printing money for the country without approval from Parliament.
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GH¢22 billion fresh notes: BoG should provide data on annual lending to gov't — John Gatsi
Professor John Gatsi, the Dean of the Business School at the University of Cape Coast, has said economic and regulatory institutions created by the constitution are ordinarily mandated to provide economic data sensitive for investment and economic decision-making by domestic and external stakeholders.
Professor John Gatsi
Ato Forson alleged that the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has printed money to support the government's budget without parliamentary approval.
According to him, the Central Bank has perpetuated illegality that has to be handled.
He said "Between January and June 2022, the Minister responsible for Finance and the government went to the Central Bank, and they encouraged the BoG to print money worth GH¢22 billion. They have printed GH¢22 billion fresh money without the knowledge of Parliament and without informing all of us."
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Addressing the press after the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta presented the mid-year budget and economic policy of the government to Parliament, Ato Forson mentioned the brand new forex has resulted in the excessive inflation being witnessed within the country.
But the Central Bank in a statement issued on Tuesday, July 26, 2022, said Dr. Ato Forson's claim could not be farther from the truth.
On the part of John Gatsi, "the data provided should satisfy the principles of transparency, disclosures, and independence. Respect for data from the Bank of Ghana is crucial. When we get to a point where important players such as the Minority Caucus in Parliament demonstrate public mistrust about data from the Bank of Ghana, the matter should be considered potentially risky. Especially when the matter borders on international reserves and printing of money."
In a Facebook post, he stated that "the issue has the potential to worsen the risky cloud over the economy of Ghana. It is worrying that the accusation of printing of money was responded to by a lengthy explanation which was greeted with a further response from the minority proving that the accusation of printing of money by the Bank of Ghana is unexplained by the press release issued by BoG. In the midst of deep economic and financial crises, the country is facing, a critical institution such as the Bank of Ghana should not be under the continuous burden of proof to promote heightened mistrust about its activities.
"In the context of the discussion, the printing of money only means the Bank of Ghana is lending to the central government in excess of the regulatory benchmark of not more than 5% of the previous year's tax revenue. The IMF prefers zero lending by BoG to the government and this development may negatively affect the Ghana- IMF talk for a programme."
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He added: "One way to stop the press releases to moderate the risk to the Bank of Ghana and the economy is for the Bank of Ghana to provide annual lending to the government from 2019 to 2021 and account for the first half of 2022. The public has the ability to compute to ascertain whether or not there have been regulatory breaches."
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