Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, has taken to the cleaners economist or banker, Dr Robert Owusu-Gyeki, after the latter attempted to respond to some issues the MP raised in his recent letter to the BoG Governor, Dr Ernest Addison.

The Member of the Finance Committee had in the letter accused the Governor of Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison of concealing economic data in order to “deceive investors and players in Ghana’s financial markets”.

He claims Dr. Addison ignored his request to some information to assist him with his work on the banking sector in 2018, and mentioned that BoG had adopted some ‘uncouth’ ways of adding up figures from Ghana’s Petroleum Holding Funds to bloat the Net International Reserves of the nation.

According to the MP, there is an increasingly diminishing credibility and confidence in BoG, and stated that there has been some ‘worrying issues’ bedevilling the Central Bank. These he said included concealment and manipulation of Net International Reserves and Manipulative Policy rate cuts and Policy Distortions.

He, however, cautioned that the “continuous manipulation of the Policy Rate that is not consistent with the fundamentals of the economy and concealing of critical economic data will further worsen the credibility crisis of BoG and derail any efforts at attracting badly needed investments into the country.”

But in Mr Adngo’s responses to Dr Owusu-Gyeki pleaded that if the economist will “provide that agreement to the public to help exonerate yourself from going down as one lying to cover up for Bank of Ghana’s deceptive antics. It will further exempt you from lying about the activities of the IMF and the Government of Ghana.”

Mr Adongo pointed it out that the encumbered funds are funds restricted from usage because it been set aside for a defined purpose, whilst proceeds of the Petroleum Holding Fund can count as part of Ghana’s gross international reserves (GIR), which is part of NIR since they are not available for use by either the government or the Bank of Ghana until conditions for their usage are met.

“In fact, but for the absence of the Investment Advisory Committee (IAC), the Bank of Ghana would have had nothing to do with the Petroleum Holding Funds talk less of counting it as part of NIR, which is a collection of foreign currency resources that the Central Bank can use for monetary operation purposes as and when the need arises," Mr Adongo's letter reads.

Find Isaac Adongo's full statement below