The Bank of
Ghana (BOG) has justified its funding support to the 2022 budget presented by
the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
According to the
BOG, the support of ¢44.5 billion to the government avoided external and
domestic debt default in 2022.
In a statement
copied to the press, the Bank of Ghana said the support was for critical
imports to keep the economy on a stable path.
“It will be
important to recall the circumstances under which the Government of Ghana
decided to seek IMF support. Ghana had lost access to the International Capital
Market, and domestic revenue was significantly underperforming and not
realized, pushing the state of government finances into near external and
domestic default.”
“With the above,
the policy choices were not that of business as usual but rather a more
challenged conduct of macroeconomic policy in the context of crisis. The
government needed to finance critical expenditures for which Bank of Ghana
needed to provide the necessary financing to avert a disorderly default of both
servicing for domestic and external debt including financing critical imports
to keep the economy on the stable path,” parts of the statement read.
“It must be
recognized that the ongoing debt operations are part of the corrective measures
designed to address the financing problem of the budget. Bank of Ghana
financing was part of a crisis management tool used in dealing with the
difficulties of 2022,” it added.
The BoG also
said that the Parliament of Ghana was aware that it was financing the budget of
the government.
“On a net basis
therefore, putting together all claims and netting off all deposit liabilities,
these transactions resulted in an increase in Bank of Ghana’s net claims to the
Government by GH¢44.5 billion,” it added
The statement by
the BoG comes after it was heavily criticized by some Ghanaians after a
Bloomberg report indicated that it printed GH¢41.9 billion for the government
in 2022.
EVANS ANNANG ||
PULSE.COM.GH
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