BoG won’t print money to pay depositors of defunct financial institutions - Governor

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison has served notice that the central bank will not print money to pay up customers of defunct banking and financial institutions who have had their investments locked up due to the financial sector clean-up.

According to him, the central bank will in no way gain anything by printing money to pay up such customers because it will cause an upsurge in inflation which will eventually devalue the cedi.

“Government has already decided we should pay, so you leave that to us and we would pay. But we are not going to pay by printing money as has been suggested; because printing money to do that would not help anybody. If you print money you are going to cause inflation; you are going to devalue your currency”

“At the end of the day, all of us will not gain anything out of that. So, it is important that we are able to this without resorting to printing money,” he told reporters at a news conference on Friday, January 31.

The Governor, however, assured that the receivers of the collapsed financial institutions are working to retrieve the loans advanced by the defunct institutions.

Earlier, an economist, Kwame Pianim made suggestions that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) print cedi notes to settle depositors who have had their funds locked up at various institutions due to the financial sector clean-up.

According to him, the financial sector clean-up exercise is making the New Patriotic Party (NPP) unpopular, hence, it may have dire consequences on the party in the upcoming 2020 polls.

“My suggestion was to have let the Bank of Ghana find a means to pay the affected customers even if it involved printing of money…we are making it difficult for the NPP to win this election,” he suggested.