Former President John Dramani Mahama has indicated that the Bank of Ghana’s governor is using the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) as a smokescreen to conceal his alleged mismanagement of the central bank.
The NDC Flagbearer’s remarks follow the Bank of Ghana’s explanation that GH53.1 billion of the GH60 billion losses it reported in its 2022 financial results were a direct outcome of the government’s domestic debt restructuring program, both the first and second phases.
A statement from the BoG on Wednesday said the domestic debt exchange (DDE), which was a major plank of the corrective action required for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, did not achieve the required target.
The target was for the stock of government debt to be halved from 105 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 55 per cent of GDP by 2028.
“Despite the losses inflicted on households and banks, the threshold of 55 per cent of GDP was not met”.
“The Bank of Ghana was used to close the gap to enable Ghana to meet the debt threshold that qualified Ghana for the IMF programme.
The Bank of Ghana, therefore, acted as a loss absorber,” he statement went on to say.
However, in a Facebook post on Thursday, August 10, the former President accused the Finance Minister of harming the economy and using the Covid-19 and the Ukraine/Russia war as cover-ups, while the governor of the BoG is also employing the DDE after wrecking the Central Bank.
