By Iddi Yire/Elsie Appiah-Osei
Accra, July 12, GNA – The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) has appealed to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to comply with its own Act by submitting its financial statement report to Parliament.
The appeal was made by Mr Isaac Adongo, the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee of Parliament and NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, at a news conference in Parliament House in Accra.
Mr Adongo alleged that the BoG under the leadership of Dr Ernest Addison, the Governor, was always quick to revoke the licenses of financial institutions that were not complying with the BoG Act, but the Central Bank itself was not compliant with its own Act, thereby raising issues of concern for the country.
He alleged that the Central Bank printed a lot of money to fund government activities last year and the year before, leading to high levels of inflation, high levels of interest rates and an unprecedented depreciation of the cedis.
“We have been waiting to receive the gazzeting and the publication of the Bank of Ghana’s own financial statement, which by law should have been published by the end of April 2023.” Mr Adongo said.
“We are now half year through the year, and all the banks have complied with the filing of their returns to the Bank of Ghana.”
He said those reports included long form reports, which were detailed audited reports of the banks.
He said such reports gave a breakdown of every single item on the balance sheet of the banks that one could see the bank for who it was.
“But Bank of Ghana is not able to comply with its own law to do the very thing that the other banks are doing. The bank had not filed and published its financial statement.” Mr Adongo alleged.
He said every 15 days, the BoG was supposed to gazzete its assets and liabilities and at the end of the month they were supposed to further file its assets and liabilities; saying “It’s been almost six months now, the Bank of Ghana is in clear violations of these Provisions”.
“I want to serve (a) warning to the Governor of the Central Bank of Ghana that he should remember that he had dragged people to the court over the violation of the Bank of Ghana Act.
“As a matter of fact, one of them just died, whilst in Court, and that 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 to continue with these violations of the Bank of Ghana Act…..”
He urged the Board of BoG to always ensure that the Central Bank of Ghana complied with the BoG Act.
GNA