The Bank of Ghana has explained that the "major item" under its GHS32 million communication expenditure for 2022, was electronic data transmission charges, including the Reuters and Bloomberg platforms, which "support our reserve management and management of petroleum funds, as well as currency and exchange rate".

These constituted about 57.4% of the total communications cost, the central bank said in a press statement.

"This was followed by the publications and gazettes (15%), advertisement (10%), newspapers local (0.75%) and newspapers foreign (0.46%)", it added.

The bank also explained that the GHS67.9 million reported by the Auditor-General as expenditure on computers, was used to buy hardware and software.

"The jump in computer expenses is mainly the result of the bank’s asset replacement policy which was implemented in 2022 where most of the desktop computers were replaced with laptops", the Bank of Ghana said.

"This is in line with the Bank’s Business Continuity Policy following lessons learnt from the covid-19 pandemic, to allow for flexible working arrangements", it explained.

The bank said: "In addition, all these hardware and software licence purchases were in US dollars and the exchange rate depreciation and the inflation both domestically and globally impacted the cedi equivalent on the books of the central bank".