Chartered Institute Of Bankers Holds Annual Dinner

Accra (Greater Accra) 16 Nov., Banking Institutions in the country have been urged to cooperate with the Bank of Ghana to fashion out a viable financial system to face the challenge of the 21st century and make vision 2020 a reality.

The governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr.. Kwabena Duffuor who made the call, affirmed the central bank's commitment to good leadership to the banking industry in particular, and the Financial System as a whole. Dr.. Duffuor who was addressing, the annual dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (Ghana) advised the bankers to work with honesty. "Obviously, the vital role our industry plays in the economic can only be played with a high level of professionalism and integrity". The governor warned bank officials whom he said are, "through greed and personnel gains, determined to bring our industries into disrepute". Dr.. Dufuor said the Bank of Ghana had already taken policy initiatives to ensure that a balanced and priority attention is given by Banks to the Agricultural and Manufacturing sectors of the economy. "I can assure you that other appropriate policy measures will soon be implemented to emphasise the need to shift the focus of credit policy to the private sector, and to provide appropriate incentives to effect the change". On the Bank of Ghana's projections for the future, the governor said the monetary policy in 1998 would be to achieve the twin objectives of maintaining reasonable exchange rate stability, and ensuring availability of adequate Bank credit to support the growth of the private sector. He said the recent presidential directive to banks to transfer all government accounts to the central bank was in their own interest since "It is professionally imprudent for any bank to be so highly exposed to any single customer". He explained that since such additional foreign amounts were easily convertible into cedis, "They constituted effective purchasing power and were thus source of monetary expansion and inflationary pressures in the economy. The Bank of Ghana's initiatives, the governor added, would ensure a more effective monetary policy by increasing its control of aggregate purchasing power and eventually, inflation. This policy measure is however subject to review when economic conditions improve, he said. On the continuous depreciation of the cedi, Dr.. Duffuor noted some improvement in the situation saying the foreign exchange market has been generally calm "In recent months' in contrast with the turbulence witnessed in the market during the first half of the year. "It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that the relative exchange rate stability which we have together achieved is sustained". Mr.. A. A. Tannor, president of the Institute said the institute is determined to fully cooperate with the Bank of Ghana in making the financial system work efficiently. Prizes were presented to winners in various categories of the combined associateship and intermediate examinations conducted in October, 1996 and may, 1997, while 17 new associates of the institute were introduced. Mr.. Nicholas Botwe of the Ghana Commercial Bank Limited won the Bank of Ghana prize for overall best student.

GRI