The Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, has described the organizers of the ‘OccupyBoGProtest’ and critics calling for his resignation as hooligans.
According to him,the minority caucus in Parliament holding his neck to resign is utterly baseless.
In an interview with an international business website, Dr. Addison made it clear that absolutely nothing will propel him and two deputies to step down, describing the demonstration by the NDC as “completely unnecessary.”
He said there are appropriate means for them to channel their grievances to be addressed and not to stage protests like “ruffians.”
“The minorities in parliament have many channels to channel their grievances in civilized societies, not through demonstrations in the streets as hooligans,” he added.
The protest was staged on Tuesday to denounce the economic woes in the country, which the protesters described as poor fiscal policy by the BoG.
Dr. Allison debunked the claims by the minority that he printed money to finance the extravagant lifestyle of the incumbent.
In his view, the BoG provided monetary financing during 2020 and 2022 to meet specific challenges, which he indicates are legal under central bank law.
The Central Bank posted losses totaling GHC60.81 billion for the 2022 financial year as against a profit of GHC1.23 billion recorded in 2021.
The losses were a result of the government’s domestic debt restructuring activities and the depreciation of the cedi, among other effects.
Regarding the central bank’s 2022 losses, Dr. Allison told Central Banking: “The impairment of the bank’s holdings of debt, which led to the losses, was a conditionality for the IMF program.” Nobody at the Bank of Ghana forgave any debt.”
He also explained that the BoG decided to commence the new headquarters in 2019. This was “when the bank was profitable and appropriated some of its profits for the new headquarters,” he said. “It was not any inane decision taken during a crisis.”
By Lawrence Odoom
