Dr Johnson Asiamah
The Bank of Ghana (BoG), the country’s apex financial institution, has never been so much on the spot.
Embroiled in partisan political propaganda and operational challenges, the bank has failed to meet the standards of transparency expected of an institution of its standing.
Relying on both bloggers and serial callers to change the negative image it has attracted for itself, all to no avail anyway, it continues to sink in the opinion of the public.
Its operations have become a subject of public scrutiny prompting pertinent enquiries, especially about its management of the most precious minerals in its vaults. Such enquiries have yielded largely ‘request declined’ responses, the wry smiles following these speaking volumes about the negative impressions these have registered in the minds of the public.
In the light of this, we are compelled to conclude that the volume of opaqueness overshadows the transparency in the operations of the apex bank.
There are a lot we would not know, at least for now, about the Bank of Ghana under the stewardship of Dr. Johnson Asiama and the board overseeing its operations.
It has turned out that some interested Ghanaians invoking the powers of the Right to Information (RTI) have presented a series of questions about the then New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s interventionist policy of stocking up the depleted gold in the bank’s vaults, which were sold by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and bought again under circumstances which left many Ghanaians perplexed.
The bank turned away the most critical of the questions, invasive as they sounded. The subtlety with which the questions went unanswered left the enquirers unsurprisingly disappointed.
‘Request Declined’ for questions about how the accumulated precious minerals were sold and bought back at a time the world recorded the highest cost of gold should prompt curiosity.
While partaking in a political discussion programme last Saturday on Movement Television in Accra, Wisdom Gomashie, a mining engineer/consultant, narrated how he sought answers to questions he posed to the Bank of Ghana under the RTI about how the controversial sale of gold purchased under the erstwhile NPP administration Gold Purchasing Initiative was carried out and the disappointing ‘Request Declined.’
Some of the questions, there is no doubt, must in the interest of transparency expected in a public entity such as the Bank of Ghana be answered and not covered under an unacceptable tag of ‘Request Declined.’ And the government wants Ghanaians to think it is serious about transparency when we set up a so-called Value for Money Office to rival an already established Public Procurement Authority?
Who bought the said gold and how was same moved out of the vaults of the apex bank? Request Declined.
What was the total volume sold and did the gold stay in the vaults of the bank even after the purchase? Request Declined.
What is the identity of the buyer? Request Declined.
The requests would not be declined indefinitely; one day these would be divulged and those responsible for shortchanging the state would account for their misdeeds.