An Independent Bank of Ghana is of absolute necessity – Dr. John Kwakye

Dr. John Kwakye declared that the IEA’s recent call of the BoG Act is meant to safeguard the independence of the Bank of Ghana while ensuring its accountability.
A transparent, accountable and independent Bank of Ghana is of uttermost neccessity. Dr. John Kwakye is the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs, IEA.

He stated of his X handle, “That is fair game. The review proposed longer terms for the Governors, approval of their remuneration by Parliament and their accountability to same body.”

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin, announced earlier that the cabinet had approved the proposed amendment of the BoG Act as part of efforts to attain a boost, pertaining to the independence of the central bank.

The proposed amendment has the aim of addressing the recommendations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) safeguard assessment to strengthen the autonomy of the BoG. This was declared on the 1st of July during a joint press conference had by the the IMF and the Ministry of Finance, BoG.

He said “The IMF has acknowledged Ghana’s strong performance, as attested to by Stephane Roudette, the IMF Mission Chief for Ghana. The performance of Ghana under the programme has been generally strong with all the quantitative performance criteria for the second review and all indicative targets met, except one and notable progress is being made on vital structural reforms.

The proposed amendment of the Act was made after the economic support programme for Ghana by the Fund had approved of it last year. This was contained in a country report issued by the Fund on May 17, 2023.

The amendments to the BoG Act would feature a stricter limit for monetary financing, mechanisms to monitor and enforce compliance, and offer clear definition of emergency situations under which the limit can be temporarily lifted.

Prior to Ghana securing the IMF Executive Board for a $3 billion bailout, the Ministry of Finance and the BoG had signed an MoU, a memorandum of understanding to end monetary financing during the programme.