The Bank of Ghana has justified its decision to spend millions of cedis to construct a new head office at a time it has posted what the Minority in Parliament considered unprecedented loss.
In a statement responding to the Minority’s demand for the resignation of its head, the BoG said the building of a new head office has become necessary following an integrity assessment conducted into the existing one which revealed it is no longer fit for purpose.
The outcome of the assessment, it explained, indicates that the main head office building does not have the required strength to withstand natural disasters such as storm and earthquake which are expected to occur in the nation’s capital.
“The outcome of the structural integrity work was that the main building does not satisfy the full complement of excess strength required for a building to be considered safe for usage. This means that in the case of a worst case gravity and wind loading scenario, for example, unusually strong wind, the building may be significantly affected,” it said.
“The building also does not have the required strength to withstand the expected imposed significant earthquake loads that would be expected to occur in the Accra area”.
This coupled with its objective of positioning the country as a financial hub of the subregion with the possibility of it becoming headquarters for a future regional Central Bank makes the building of a new head office not just necessary but a top priority to management of the BoG, it said.
“Based on the above, and looking at the strategic objective of positioning Ghana as the financial hub of the subregion, with prospects of a potential Headquarters for a future regional Central Bank, The Board and Management of the Bank considered a new Head Office building as the most important priority project to support the operational efficiency of the Bank, and also position the Bank of Ghana in a very good position to be the host of the regional Central Bank as we currently host the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) of the Sub region”.
The Minority in Parliament, at a press conference on Tuesday, August 8, 2023, accused Governor of the BoG and his deputies of mismanaging the affairs of the Central Bank and engaging in illegality.
They claimed the heads of the BoG superintended over wastage of the bank’s resources on what they considered frivolous expenditure and illegally writing off huge loans they had lent to the government, resulting in unprecedented loss.
They also raised concern about the decision of the Central Bank to expend about $250 million to put up a new head office and demanded the resignation of the governor and his deputies.
The Central Bank, however, dismissed the allegation of mismanagement, attributing the loss to the hike in inflation and the depreciation of the Ghanaian Cedi, which it said significantly affected its cost of operations.
The BoG insisted that its decision to write off government indebtedness to it was not illegal as posited by the Minority since the action was part of the debt restructuring programme which Parliament approved.
