No money for gov’t in election year – New BoG Governor insists

The Bank of Ghana has ruled out any possibility of succumbing to government’s pressure to print more currencies especially in an election year.

The newly appointed Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Abdul Nashiru Issahaku told TV3 in an exclusive interview there will be zero financing of government by the Bank of Ghana.

"The Bank of Ghana will not print out additional currency to finance government, if we are to maintain a strong resilient economy", he told TV3’s Paa Kwesi Asare in Washington DC.

He said following the country's three year program with the International Monetary Fund, it is important to keep within spending limit to ensure a stable economic environment.

When asked about the central bank’s traditional inflation targeting role, the Governor said whiles focusing on stability of the economy, he would also introduce policies that target growth by working with the commercial banks to provide incentives and encourage lending to productive sectors of the economy and most importantly for banks to lend at reasonable rates.

MICRO FINANCE

Dr Abdul Nashiru Issahaku says one of his major priorities as Governor will be to sanitize and streamline the operations of micro finance companies.

According to him, until the sector is sanitized the central bank would not grant licence to new companies.

The activities of micro finance firms have in recent times come under scrutiny following the folding up of a number of them in the Brong Ahafo region. President Mahama subsequently blamed the Bank of Ghana for not doing enough to protect depositors.

The new Governor said a number of well thought-out policies have been designed and will soon be implemented. They include the setting up of an apex bank that will oversee the operations of all micro finance companies, enhance supervision and monitoring of their operations by deploying personal at all regional capitals, he said.

Dr Issahaku who is attending the spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF for the first time in his capacity as Governor said these policies when implemented together with the passage of the deposit protection bill into law will renew confidence in the industry.