Paul Acquah elected chairman of West African Monetary Zone

Accra, Dec. 16, GNA- The 10th Meeting of the Committee of Governors of Central Banks of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) held in Accra on Tuesday unanimously endorsed Dr Paul Acquah, Governor of Bank of Ghana as its chairman.

Dr Acquah said all the five states taken together slipped from a score of 65 per cent as at end June 2003 to 35 per cent at the end of September with respect to meeting the target set under the criteria. This, he said, was the lowest performance since the commencement of the WAMZ convergence process in 2000 and emphasised the need for hard work to enable members achieve the targets by the end of 2005.

At a Summit held in Conakry in November 2002, Heads of State of the five countries decided to defer the introduction of the currency from January 2003 to July 2005 to enable the States satisfy the criteria set for its introduction.

Dr Acquah said inspite of the poor performance by the member countries; Ghana had been able to achieve three out of the four primary criteria.

They were; budget deficit as against Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio which should be less than or equal to four per cent, Central Bank financing of the budget deficit in relation to the previous year's tax revenue that was equal to 10 per cent and three months reserves as import covers.

Dr Acquah noted that Ghana was yet to attain the single digit inflation threshold, and encouraged other countries to intensify surveillance programmes and plans to harmonise macro-economic policies as well as make greater efforts at economic information sharing within the Monetary Zone.

He also called for intra-community trade among ECOWAS member states and the elimination of all bottlenecks adding "we need to re-double effort to encourage greater inter-ministerial collaboration and greater commitment to regional cooperation and integration."

The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone and observers were attending the meeting from West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) and the West African Monetary Agency (WAMA). The rest were West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM and West African Bankers Association (WABA).