Source: newsthemegh.com
Dr. Ernest Addison, the governor of the central bank, has called the #OccupyBoG protesters clamoring for his resignation “hooligans.”
He claims that the claim that the minority caucus in Parliament is pressuring him to resign is wholly untrue.
Dr. Addison made it clear in an interview with a global business publication that nothing—absolutely nothing—will convince him and his two deputies to resign, and he called the NDC rally “completely unnecessary.”
He claimed that instead of staging demonstrations like “ruffians,” there are proper channels via which their complaints can be addressed.
In civilized cultures, “the minority in parliament has many channels to express their grievances, not through demonstrations in the streets as hooligans,” he continued.
The demonstration was held on Tuesday to protest the nation’s economic problems, which the demonstrators blamed on the BoG’s weak fiscal policy.
Dr. Addison refuted the minority’s assertions that he printed money to support the incumbent’s luxurious lifestyle.
Dr. Addison explained to Central Banking that the impairment of the bank’s debt holdings, which caused the losses, was a requirement for the IMF program. The Bank of Ghana did not forgive any debts.
The BoG agreed to start construction on the new headquarters in 2019, he added. This was “when the bank was profitable and appropriated some of its profits for the new headquarters,” the speaker remarked. “It wasn’t some stupid choice made in the middle of a crisis,”
According to him, the BoG offered monetary financing in 2020 and 2022 to address specific problems, which is permitted according to central bank regulations.
Compared to a profit of GHC1.23 billion in 2021, the Central Bank reported losses totaling GHC60.81 billion for the 2022 fiscal year.
The losses were caused, among other things, by the government’s efforts to restructure its domestic debt and the depreciation of the cedi.