Business News of Tuesday, 14 April 2020

Source: laudbusiness.com

Print money to support economy – Economist to BoG

Dr Lord Mensah, economist Dr Lord Mensah, economist

Economist, Dr. Lord Mensah, has said the Bank of Ghana can print money to help government’s fight against the COVID-19 due to the pressure on public finance.

Government is mobilising resources to deal with the effect of the COVID-19 on the economy.

Speaking to Citi FM in relation to this, Dr Mensah who also lectures at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) said :“Whatever incentive we are going to provide or subsidiary the government intends to provide will boil down to the Central bank diving into its coffers, if there is not enough or contingencies that the country has.

“I mean if we don’t have contingency, then in house, there is nothing wrong if we print money to satisfy the immediate needs of the country,” he suggested.

He addded : “The reason why I am saying this is that Ghana was already struggling, liquidity wise. We were having serious problems with liquidity and you could see all the measures that we were putting in place, before the COVID 19 was to ensure that the banks are liquid and we never got there before COVID-19 came in.

“So, if you ask me that the Central Bank can print money for that purpose, it depends on the production capacity of the economy as well,” he added.