News:
September 4, 2014
The Member of Parliament for Obuasi West and a member of Parliament’s Finance Committee is accusing the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) of manipulating the interbank foreign exchange rates.
Kwaku Kwarteng described the act as illegal, saying it “deviates drastically from the official rates quoted by Ghanaian banks and rates prevailing in the Ghanaian currency market.”
Mr. Kwarteng’s accusations were contained in a letter addressed to the governor of the Bank of Ghana, Kofi Wampah.
The letter also said “Governor, the interbank foreign exchange rates the Bank of Ghana is currently publishing are not just irregular, they are also illegal. The conduct of the Bank of Ghana constitutes ‘Multiple Currency Practice.”
Mr. Kwarteng is not the only member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) who has accused the BoG of publishing what he described in his letter as irregular data.
The 2012 vice presidential candidate of the NPP. Dr. Mahamadu Bawumiah last month accused the BoG and the Ghana Statiscal Service (GSS) of “cooking up” the foreign exchange and inflation data.
In a statement, Dr. Bawumia said: “A simple look at the the interbank market exchange rates indicates that the cedi has not only been depreciating daily, but is currently trading between GHC3.7 and GHC 4.1 per dollar with an average of some GHC3.8 per US dollar.”
According to him, “the large spread between the Bank of Ghana exchange rate and the interbank exchange rate indicates that the Bank of Ghana rate is being administratively set and not market driven.”
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