IMF compliance mechanisms has exposed BoG's reporting shortfalls

1. It will be recalled that since 2018, Former President John Dramani Mahama and the NDC Minority in Parliament have raised issues about the consistent “clever accounting” reporting of national accounts by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government and shockingly aided by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison.

2. The Bank of Ghana led by Dr Addison and his team has since 2017 inflated Ghana’s gross international reserves by adding the encumbered funds, which is contrary to the standard methodology and also different from the IMF balance of Payment Manual Five (BPM 5) computation. This assertion by the NDC was confirmed by the then IMF Country Representative to Ghana, Dr Albert Touna Mama.

Afterwards, the government communicators chastised the IMF Representative, and it was not surprising that he was replaced months later.

IMF presence forces out the truth about Bank of Ghana’s machinations

3. But just like their other lies and machinations, it was just a matter of time before the truth comes panting. So after several years of hiding our true reserves, the IMF has now forced the Bank of Ghana to report Ghana’s gross international reserves accurately to conform with the balance of payments manual.

4. The Bank of Ghana in its July 2023 Summary of Economic and Financial Data included a new row for the first time, called Gross International Reserves (GIR), excluding Encumbered Assets & Petroleum Funds. Shockingly, the data has exposed the fact that the Bank of Ghana has since 2017 inflated Ghana’s reserves by over 100%. For instance, the bank reported GIR for December 2022 at US$6.2 billion, but their July 2023 report showed the actual position was US$1.4 billion.

Where is this sudden depletion from?

5. This revelation, which rather confirms the position we in the NDC have held all this while strengthens our believe that the current management at the Bank of Ghana, headed by Dr Addison has been cooking figures to support the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government to deceive Ghanaians and investors, resulting in grave damage to the public's trust in governance and losses to investors and businesses.

It is concerning as this amounts to a trampling on established accounting and fiscal standards on reporting national data. While I call on Ghanaians to take interest in this matter, I urge Ghana's vibrant media and the civil society to take keen interest in this ethical and disdainful spitting on established standards to achieve political objectives by an institution as sensitive as the central bank.

It can not be that as the central bank, which should be the guardian of financial integrity, has ganged up with the ministry of finance and the presidency on this crudely orchestrated mismanagement and creative accounting.

Companies have collapsed, individuals have lost their life savings, and the time is now for us Ghanaians to speak against this.

Ballooning public debt and questions needing urgent answers

6. Another point of interest is the revelation on the debt portfolio in the July data from the Bank of Ghana. In the May 2023 publication of the Summary of Economic and Financial Data, the Bank of Ghana stated that Ghana’s public debt as of December 2022 was GH¢434.6 billion.

Two months later – in July 2023 – it has inflated the public debt for December 2022 to GH¢473.2 billion. It added in a footnote that the debt had been adjusted to include the overdraft facility from the Bank of Ghana to the government, which was securitized in December 2022.

Questions:

A. If the overdraft was securitized in December 2022, why did Bank of Ghana not reflect this in their previous publications but waited until July this year?

B. Or is it the reason why the Bank of Ghana has delayed the publication of its 2022 Annual Financial Statement?

C. As head of the economic management team, does Dr. Bawumia know all these things? Is that the financial Wizkid?

7. We are patiently waiting for the publication of the annual financial statement. The managers of the Bank of Ghana should bear in mind that the Mahama Government from 2025 will surely demand accountability on behalf of the people of Ghana.

Tomorrow is indeed pregnant.