Policy to tackle lending rate to be presented to cabinet for consideration

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekow Spio Garbrah, has disclosed that a document proposing how to reduce the countrys high lending rate will be presented to cabinet this week for consideration.

The document, according to the minister, was created by some top 15 experts, and it proposes ways to control the country's interest rate amongst others.

"We have created an expert group of some 15 economists from the University of Ghana, some policy think tanks, Bank of Ghana, the finance ministry and we just prepared a cabinet paper that is going to cabinet this week talking about the various things we think the BoG and other institutions can do to find a way to control interest rate amongst other things," he told Accra based Citi FM.

Spio Garbrah also lamented about the country's interest rate, saying it is a recipe for killing businesses.

"In Ghana, we are doing 30 to 100 percent interest rate. That is a recipe for killing bisinesses."

He described as unfair the spread between the savings rate and the lending rates of most banks in the country.

"If you go to a bank and you just ask for a normal savings account you may get 5 or 6 % if you are lucky. If you are doing Treasury bills that is fine, you may get more. If you know how to negotiate then you can do Treasury bills, you can do all kind of medium to longer term account that will give you high rate. But the basic savings rate is stuck with five to six percent."

Meanwhile, the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin has criticised the country's high lending rate to businesses.

He told a networking event for some local enterprises organised by Invest Africa that it is making people difficult to respond to it.

“Whether it is bureaucracy, whether it is the difficulty of getting access to credit and even you can, Ghana has one of the highest commercial interest rates which are very very difficult for people to respond to.”

Policy to tackle lending rate to be presented to cabinet for consideration

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekow Spio Garbrah, has disclosed that a document proposing how to reduce the countrys high lending rate will be presented to cabinet this week for consideration.

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