The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has come under severe attack from economists and some members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) for manipulating exchange rate figures in the country.
According to them BoG has been manipulating data on the exchange rate to create the impression that the rates have been fixed over the past few months.
Although various government spokerspersons including the President’s economic advisor, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson have justified the rates published, the Bank of Ghana has not officially responded.
[contextly_sidebar id=”28CPJvvJRyjfP6Y5XzJ3fMjf48ujXb3I”]It is based on this backdrop that the Member of Parliament for Obuasi West and a member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Kwaku Kwarteng has vowed to “shake the Bank of Ghana until it rectifies such irregularity” in its exchange rates.
But Kwaku Kwarteng who earlier on wrote a letter to the BoG on the same issue, speaking on the Citi Fm’s Eye Witness News on Monday, disclosed that the figures published by the BoG is entirely different from the ones used by the commercial banks in the country.
“They [BoG] is practicing multiple currency system and that is illegal. If you go to the banks for the dollar now, they will be giving it to you at 3.7, sometimes 3.8 and for some of the banks, 4.1. What the bank of Ghana ought to do is to take the averages of what is happening in the market and to adopt that as the official exchange rate by which state agencies have to do business. I do not see how you can take averages of figures between 3.7 and 4 and get 3,” he declared.
He opined that the manipulation of foreign exchange rates has impacted negatively on the lives of Ghanaians.
Mr Kwarteng is however calling on the BoG to clarify the issue.
By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana