The minority caucus in parliament has said it intends to chase the governor of the Bank of Ghana with the law to compel him to comply with the central bank’s own Act, which mandates the regulatory body of financial institutions, to gazette and publish its audited reports.
Deputy ranking member of the finance committee of parliament, Mr Isaac Adongo, told journalists on Wednesday, 12 July 2023 that it was unacceptable for the governor of the central bank to violate his own supervisory Act.
“There is a very sad development in our country today”, he observed, explaining: “We are all aware that our economy is in a mess and part of the reason we are in this mess is because Dr Ernest Addison of the Bank of Ghana has mismanagement the Bank of Ghana”.
The Bolgatanga MP said: “As we speak today, the Bank of Ghana, under the leadership of Dr Addison, is always quick to revoke the licences of financial institutions that are not compliant with the Bank of Ghana Act. But the Bank of Ghana itself, is not compliant with its own Act, and, as a compliant institution, that raises very serious red flags for our country”.
The opposition lawmaker said this is a Bank of Ghana that “printed a lot of money to fund government activity last year and the year before, leading to very high levels of inflation, interest rates, and unprecedented depreciation of the cedi”.
“We have been waiting to receive the gazetting and the publication of the Bank of Ghana’s own financial statement, which, by law, should have been published by the end of April of the year”, he noted.
“We are now halfway through the year, all the banks have complied with the filing of their returns to the Bank of Ghana. Those reports include what we call the Long Form Report, which has very detailed audited reports of the banks, breaking down every single item on the balance sheet of the bank in order that we can see the bank for what it is. But the Bank of Ghana is not able to comply with its own law to do the very thing the other banks are doing”, Mr Adongo complained.
The central bank, he added, “has not filed and published its financial statements”, noting: “Every 15 days, the Bank of Ghana is supposed to gazette its assets and liabilities, and at the end of the month, they are supposed to further file its assets and liabilities. It’s been almost six months now; the Bank of Ghana is in clear violation of this provision”, he added.
“I want to serve a warning to the governor of the central bank, Dr Addison, that he should remember that he has dragged people to the court for the violation of the Bank of Ghana Act. As a matter of fact, one of them just died while in court and he should know that the same level of accountability will be extended to him”.
“But he has a decision to make: whether to cut his losses and comply with the law, or he continues with these violations of the Bank of Ghana Act, and that the long arm of the law is waiting for him”.
“And he should remember that criminality has no expiry date”, he warned.
Mr Adongo further said: “I want to ask the Board of Directors and the auditors of the Bank of Ghana to pay particular scrutiny to the loan book of the Bank of Ghana and that any unnecessary impairments of the bank’s assets emanating from careless lending and printing of money to the government will be investigated and these audits will be reviewed in terms of the applicable standards that are required in audits and if we find in the future that the auditors and the Bank of Ghana and the Board, are complicit in concealing the true state of affairs at the Bank of Ghana, we will take steps to remedy the situation and that remedy will include those auditors being brought to book, reporting them to the regulatory body that governs auditors in Ghana and we will take steps to ensure that the Board members properly account for their stewardship at the Bank of Ghana”.
Mr Adongo said he will let his lawyer write an official request to the BoG to comply with the Act and also hinted at the caucus engaging the Speaker of parliament to subpoena Dr Addison to speak to his reports, adding that “there is no hiding place for you”.
“He [Dr Addison] cannot be recklessly managing our monetary and financial institutions, collapsing our banks and financial institutions, rendering our livelihoods useless with inflation, interest rates and depreciation, and not want to account for those matters”.
Source: Classfmonline.com
