NDC minority in parliament
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament have expressed their intention to drag the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison, before Parliament to account to Ghanaians the total cost incurred in printing the new cedi notes released by the bank last week.
Making their intention known at a press conference in Parliament yesterday, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said the nation would like to know not only the total cost incurred but also the cost of each note compared to its face value and how the bank intends to use any potential ‘profit’ made from the printing of the notes.
According to the Minority, the BoG is most likely to make a profit of GH¢3.8 billion if it prints 20 million pieces of the new GH¢200 which in financial terms is called ‘seigniorage revenue’.
The Minority leader said that the profit made on printing the new currencies could be used to fund the campaign of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2020 general elections.
He said the printing of the new higher currencies could easily fuel inflation and bring a lot of financial burden on Ghanaians, stressing that when the opposition NDC wins power in 2020, it will definitely conduct a forensic audit into the entire exercise as well as others which will focus on the individual roles played by members of the board of the BoG and friends and family members of the President.
In the opinion of the Minority NDC in Parliament, there is absolutely no justification for the central bank to embark on this exercise, stressing that the central bank’s own economic and financial data reveals that current money growth is not below the optimal rate.
“The latest data from the Bank of Governor as from the end of October 2019 suggests that reserve money growth was 26.1% in October 2019 as compared to 4.3% in the same period last year while Narrow money (M1) also recorded a spike of 22.6% in October, 2019 as compared to 14% during the same period last year,” the Minority leader said.
The Minority NDC, therefore, described as complete waste of the nation’s resources the printing exercise by the BoG at a time when its own balance sheet is in a very precarious state and needed re-capitalization.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr