BoG introduces additional monetary policy measure to control inflation

The Monetary Policy Commit­tee (MPC) of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has intro­duced additional monetary policy measure to mop up excess capital from the market to control inflation.

Inflation continues to decline and currently at 35.2 percent after peaking at 54.2 percent in December last year.

The new measure, which took effect on November, 30, 2023, was the unification of the currency holding for the Cash Reserve Ratio requirement on foreign currency denominated deposits and domestic currency deposits for banks and the new unified Cash Reserve Ratio for total deposits (cedi and foreign currency) –to be held in Cedis.

“This measure is to reinforce the bank’s liquidity management operations to address excess structural liquidity conditions in the market and provide additional impetus to the disinflation pro­cess,” Dr Addison, the Governor of the BoG, disclosed this during a news conference at the 115th regular meeting of the MPC in Accra.

He explained that the Cash Reserve Ratio requirement on foreign currency denominated deposits, and domestic currency deposits of banks were being reset to 15 per cent.

Dr Addison said the Commit­tee would continue to monitor developments in the banking sector and deploy other policy tools, as and when required, to support stability.

The Governor explained that the new directive would further help to bring inflation down and withdraw excess liquidity from the market.

Dr Addison disclosed that all the 23 universal banks had submitted re-capitalisation plans to the BoG, saying the Banking Supervision Department and the MPC had reviewed the plans and were credible.

“We are quite hopeful that within the next two years most of the banks would have capital­ised and be able to meet the cap­ital adequacy threshold without reliefs,” adding, “Right now they are meeting those capital thresh­old with regulatory reliefs.”

Dr Addison said the GH¢25 billion spent on the banking sector cleanup was not spent on banks alone, saying some of the monies were spent on the Savings and Loans and Microfinance sectors.

He said that some of the Savings and Loans and Microf­inance institutions did not have any asset for the government to sell to pay individuals whose funds were locked up in those institutions.

Touching on the BoG’s E-Cedi initiative to drive a cash-lite economy, he said the programme would not be imple­mented next year.

He said the programme would be implemented when the current macroeconomic changes were addressed so as not to defeat the objective of the initiative.