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Bank of Ghana lied about pumping $20 million to save cedi – Casely-Hayford

By Daily Graphic
Business & Finance Sydney Casely-Hayford
JUN 28, 2015 LISTEN
Sydney Casely-Hayford

Financial analyst, Sydney Casely Hayford, has accused the Bank of Ghana (BoG) of lying to Ghanaians that it is injecting $20 million daily into the money market to stabilise the cedi.

The central bank announced the intervention Thursday after the cedi fell more than 20% in value to the major trading currencies between January and June 2015.

According to the bank, instead of making $14 million available to banks weekly, it will now be giving them $20 million.

We expect the cedi to stabilise by the end of the first half of the year when we have some major offshore inflows,” the Governor of the BoG, Dr Henry Kofi Wampah, told the Daily Graphic.

But Sidney Casely-Hayford, has questioned BoG’s capacity to make $20 million available daily.

Speaking Saturday on Accra-based Citi FM’s The Big Issue on “They [BoG] are lying to us, they can’t afford $20 million a day,” he pointed out.

According him, Ghana would not have had to go to the IMF for bailout if BOG could make $600 million in a month.

“If you have $600 million, why are we going to take $918 million from the IMF? It’s not possible. The Bank of Ghana cannot make $600 million in a month,” he stressed.

Mr Casely-Hayford added that the inability of the government to raise $45 million to pay Bankswitch was an indication that it did not have money.

“$20 million a day will translate to about $600 million in a month. Where is the money coming from? This is where the whole problem starts. They can’t even find $45 million to pay for the Bankswitch case. If you had $20 million to sink why would you not lend government $45 million to pay for the Bankswitch case and avoid the so called GH¢1 billion debt that we are hearing it’s supposed to come,” he said.

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