Renowned Economist Kwame Pianim has waded into the debate over whether the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison and his two deputies should resign for wrongfully financing the government, arguing that the Governor did nothing wrong for supporting an ailing economy.
According to him, the Governor’s resignation would not solve any problem, adding, the economic crisis was not caused by the Bank of Ghana.
Speaking in an interview with Accra based TV3, Dr. Pianim said the Governor and his team did not perpetuate any fraud and therefore assertions of incompetence and mismanagement of the economy is neither here nor there.
“Resignation doesn’t solve any problem. If the Governor resigns now, what happens, the same Minister of Finance [Ken Ofori-Atta] who is at the core of the economic crises recommends to the same president [Akufo-Addo] a new person? They appoint somebody who doesn’t know the terrain, who hasn’t gone through this experience to be able to solve the problem, No”.
“What I am saying is that was it through incompetence, No. Not incompetence. Was it through fraud? Did the governor benefit? Did any of his company benefit from what he did? No.”, the renowned economists pointed out.
Dr. Pianim also stated that BoG did nothing wrong for not going to Parliament before supporting the government to revive a struggling economy.
According to him, the BoG did not need any parliamentary approval before supporting an ailing economy.
“I don’t recall that they [BoG] need parliamentary approval. Remember, we suspended the Fiscal Responsibility Act. When the fiscal responsibility was removed it was saying in effect, we cannot obey the regulations that we have governing the fiscal, l so we are suspending it.
“When the Minister of Finance went to parliament and they agreed to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act, parliament should have asked, what happens to the equivalent that is the Monetary Policy Act which is Article 36 of the Amendment BoG Act which says that if there is an emergency and BoG needs to be able to suspend the rules surrounding monetary policy what they do is to inform the Minister of Finance”, he explained.
To him, “it is the Minister for Finance’s responsibility to report to parliament. We didn’t make BoG responsible to go to parliament. So when the Minister of Finance went to parliament to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act, somebody from the opposition should have asked, what happened to Article 36 of the Banking Act. And the Minister should have said concurrently that part is also suspended because you cannot suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act and leave the complimentary dimensions on the monetary policy side.”
