Overstretched profligacy

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) understands better the state of the country’s economy. Unfortunately, the level of frugality which should characterize a country in economic stress is not what the apex bank has exhibited.

The BoG is reported to have purchased Hollywood grade wrist watches for retiring staff at prices which cannot be commensurate with the status of a country under the wings of a Bretton Wood institution.

We have heard the defence the bank has put up – a useless bid to repel a profligacy so untoward we are lost for words to describe.

We would be quick to point out however, that this kind of response is laced with hubris, an insult to the good people of this country.

We think that the defence could have been crafted in a manner devoid of the import it did. We are not disputing the fact that the bank as an autonomous body can organize its own internal arrangements in certain segments such as retirement packages and the like.

These, however, must be in tune with the state of the country of which BoG is a part. Unless the management of the apex bank seeks to tell us that it’s an Island with nothing to do with central government, it must come off this autonomy status mentality and be real.

We are regarding the bank as an entity which is either pretending to be oblivious of the sorry state of Ghana or just being reckless in its management of scarce resources.

Ghanaians saddled with numerous negative stories about the economy, by this development and the accompanying unpalatable response from the BoG can no longer trust the apex bank to turn down bad requests from central government to prosecute political projects which are injurious to the interest of the country.

We have also learnt that the mode of purchase – soul sourcing – in contravention of procurement law as applicable in Ghana is worrying.

We cannot accept it when our apex bank engages in what by all standards is both illegal and immoral.

We must trust as a people our apex bank to be sensitive to the state of our economy and above all, conduct its affairs in conformity with our laws.

We are beginning to wonder what other breaches the bank has undertaken unknown to the people of Ghana, especially when government, cornered by the effects of bad policies, would push it to commit.

We cannot expect the government to pose questions about the unusual profligacy by the management of the BoG because after all, both of them are in bed. Comrades in financial and moral breaches would not be a bad description of the bond. Have all institutions of state been so contaminated by the contagion of financial impropriety? It started from the top and has trickled down. Ghana does not deserve this.