The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has rejected accusations that the cost of its new headquarters under construction is inflated.

According to the regulator, the $2,068 per square kilometre cost of the project compares favorably with data from the Africa Property and Construction Cost Guide 2021/22’s $2,658 per square kilometre and 2022/23 cost of $2,720 per square meter as average construction costs for Prestige High Rise Office spaces in Africa.

The BoG pointed out that even though the comparable data from the Africa Property and Construction Cost Guide relates to Prestige High Rise Office spaces, the unique features of a Central Bank, including vaults and security installations rank higher than the considerations for the former.

Addressing a press conference in Accra to address claims of bloated cost, Governor of BoG, Dr Ernest Addison said “this makes the figure for the Bank’s building more competitive”.

Explaining why the cost of the building was reviewed upwards, Dr Addition said the need to reconfigure the spatial requirements in order to meet all relevant statutory requirements and functionality of the building resulted in modifications of the initial design concept to the current gross floor area in excess of 100,000square metres.

He said total gross floor area was increased by 27,000 square metres from 73,000 square metres in the first design to 100,000 square metres in the new design.

The tower block was reduced from 25-storeys in the first design to 20 in new design.

The new design added an 8-storey Urban Block which was not in the first design.

The car parking facility was also reduced from a four-level basement in the first design to a three-level basement in the new design.

The new design also includes a 6-storey amenities block, upper ground podium, lower ground podium, ancillary facilities, energy farm, treatment plants, and security gate houses.

The project consists of three main blocks namely the Tower, Urban and Amenities Blocks, including basements, podium and ancillary facilities.

An Auditorium in the first design is however not included in the new design.

Apart from meeting the requirements of all relevant building codes, the new building has incorporated Sustainable Design Concepts, such as energy conservation, water conservation, material selection, recycling and reuse of waste (liquid and solid), humane adaptation, among others.

A contract of about $3,450,417 was also awarded to MULTICAD, a Ghanaian consultancy firm which had partnered other consultants in all the identified projects. This amount is about 3.36% of the contract sum.

The Addison, disclosed that the decision to build a new headquarters for the beleaguered bank is not a recent one, but one that was taken well over three decades ago.

Governor Addison explained that the search for new grounds to house a modern edifice too serve as Head Office for the BoG began in the 1990s.

In 2012, the bank was allocated an unnumbered 5.19-acre land at Accra Central by the Lands Commission, but this parcel of land had issues which prevented the bank from going ahead to develop it for its purposes.

He explained that The Bank could not have access to the land since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration refused to give the Bank vacant possession on the grounds that they had never agreed to give up ownership of the land.

They therefore continued the search for a suitable piece of land to serve as the BoG’s Head Office throughout the period 2013 to 2016.

He further explained that in 2018, the Bank approached the SIC to acquire its vacant land at Ridge, close to the Ridge Hospital.

The Government then issued an Executive Instrument to allow the Bank of Ghana acquire that land, while the SIC was duly compensated.

This development paved the way for the Bank to plan the building of its new Head Office, taking into consideration the need to ensure the building meets all the requirements of a modern Central Bank, similar to its counterparts in Abuja and Dakar.

This new building will include provision for data centers, currency processes, vaults, and other sensitive installations.

Governor Addison said, “It is not just a simple ordinary building. Let me re-emphasize that the Bank followed all the necessary public procurement processes in this endeavor. No procurement laws were broken.”

He stated that the decision to commence construction of the new office was taken in 2019, ahead of the current economic issues, when the Bank generated profits.

Appropriations for the Head Office, he explained, were made each year from profits in made 2019, 2020, and 2021, meaning that the project has therefore, been going on for over 3 years.

“The DDEP only took place in January 2023. If we were to be taking the decision today, building a legacy Head Office would not have been a priority,” the Governor said.

He sated further that the new building is currently about 50 percent complete, and the Bank is taking steps to ensure that the costs of the construction “do not escalate beyond reasonable levels.”

He also indicated that “many of the original design features to including data centre, currency processing centre, ICT equipment, specialized security features have been deferred and only grey boxes provided for future use to manage costs.”