Former President John Dramani Mahama has suggested that the governor of the Bank of Ghana is using the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) as a smokescreen to mask his alleged mismanagement of the central bank.
The NDC Flagbearer’s comment comes after the Bank of Ghana explained that GH¢53.1 billion out of the GH¢60 billion losses it posted in its 2022 financial results were a direct result of the government’s domestic debt restructuring exercise, 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,” the statement added.
But in a Facebook post on Thursday, August 10, the former President accused the Finance Minister of damaging the economy and using Covid-19 and Ukraine/Russia war as cover-ups while the governor of the BoG is also using the DDE after destroying the Central Bank.
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