Story: Yaw Takyi

Mr. Kwame Pianim, an economist and founding member of the ruling NPP Renowned economist, has said in an interview last week, that the Bank of Ghana (BOG) Governor Dr. Ernest Addison had no choice but to support the country’s badly damaged economy.  The problem, he said was the economy that has been mismanaged by the Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta.  Mr. Pianim made his views known during an interview with TV3’s  Paa Kwesi Asare.

According to him, what BoG needed was the approval of the Finance Minister to give the support in terms of funding the government’s deficit.  Mr. Pianim said that BoG did not need any parliamentary approval before supporting an ailing economy.

“I don’t recall that they [BoG] need parliamentary approval. Remember, we suspended the Fiscal Responsibility Act. When the fiscal responsibility was removed it was saying in effect, we cannot obey the regulations that we have governing the fiscal, so we are suspending it.”

“When the Minister of Finance went to parliament and they agreed to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act, parliament should have asked, what happens to the equivalent that is the Monetary Policy Act which is Article 36 of the Amendment BoG Act which says that if there is an emergency and BoG needs to be able to suspend the rules surrounding monetary policy what they do is to inform the Minister of Finance”, he explained.

To him, “it is the Minister for Finance’s responsibility to report to parliament. We didn’t make BoG responsible to go to parliament. So when the Minister of Finance went to parliament to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act, somebody from the opposition should have asked, what happened to Article 36 of the Banking Act. And the Minister should have said concurrently that part is also suspended because you cannot suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act and leave the complimentary dimensions on the monetary policy side”.