John Kumah
A Deputy Minister of Finance, John Kumah has debunked claims by the Minority that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has printed GH¢22billion on the blind side of Parliament.
According to him, the claims are false, baseless without merit, and without foundation.
Speaking at media conference in Parliament on Tuesday, July 26, Mr Kumah noted that “Yesterday, he [Ato Forson] referred to page 97 of the mid-year budget fiscal review and made some baseless claims that the Bank of Ghana has printed GHC22 billion. First of all, the statement was false, it is not true, there is no foundation to that claim and we want Ghanaians to treat that with a pinch of salt.
“First of all, he accused the Minister for Finance that we have hidden the information on page 97 in appendix 2(a) of the mid-year budget. This document is a public document, it is given out there for everybody to read, so how did he pick this document, read page 97 and said that the information there has been hidden. What is the meaning of that?”
The Ejisu MP continued “The Finance Minister gave you this document and you went to page 97 and you found out that here is information about Bank of Ghana and GHC22billion and your position is that it is hidden. It shows you clearly that the NDC’s problem is their dislike for reading. They think that they don’t have to read to know the content of this document so if they read and they find information in what we have given them then it means we have hidden it. It is never true that we have hidden any information, there is no basis for that.”
This follows Cassiel Ato Forson, former Deputy Finance Minister allegations after Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta presented the 2022 mid-year budget review on Monday, July 25.
The former Deputy Finance Minister told journalists that “Between January and June 2022, the Minister responsible for Finance and the government went to the Central Bank, and they encouraged the BoG to print money worth GH¢22 billion. They have printed GH¢22 billion fresh money without the knowledge of Parliament and without informing all of us.
“I am saddened, no wonder inflation is galloping, no wonder that our reserves position is dwindling. Because when you create new money out of the thin air, what happens is that inflation will go up and obviously because it is new money, you will end up losing your reserves because there would be new consumption. If this trend continues, I won’t be surprised that we will end the year with inflation of about 50 percent.”
Ato Forson further said the presentation was “very empty. Everything in this country is not working yet the Minister responsible for Finance appeared before us and said nothing, he failed to address the very concerns of the ordinary Ghanaians.”
“Today, he comes here once again only to tell us that he has missed all the targets he set in the 2022 budget, every one of them, he could not achieve.
“Today, our public debt is in excess of GHC400 billion and yet the Minister in this document fails to talk about the public debt.”
By Vincent Kubi