Banking Consultant, Dr. Richmond Atuahene
Banking consultant, Dr. Richmond Atuahene, has said the newly unveiled headquarters of the Bank of Ghana will have no impact on the current economic difficulties the country is enduring.
Speaking on Starr Today with Tututuwaa Danso, Dr. Atuahene explained that the country’s financial standing is shaky as data on the economy paints a grim picture of the current situation, and there was no link between a 250 million-dollar complex like the new office building and measures aimed at stabilising the Ghanaian economy.
“How would a fixed asset like that contribute to financial stability? It is the Bank of Ghana that has created something which he doesn’t understand. When he, what we call, he monetised, the Bank of Ghana monetised the government expenditure, which has fuelled inflation since 2022 up to now. Nobody is talking about it.”
“The current inflation we’re experiencing is a printing of money, a monetisation of government expenditure by Central Bank that has brought us inflation of 21%. Ivory Coast is 3.8 [percent]. Togo is 6.8 [percent]. I mean, so, how are we clapping for ourselves? Edifices don’t support it,” he emphasised.
He said Zimbabwe had a Central Bank building as imposing as this one in the 1990s, yet its economy was one of the worst at the time.
The banking consultant’s comments come after President Akufo-Addo officially commissioned a new headquarters dubbed, The Bank Square, for the Central Bank at Ridge in Accra.
The Bank Square includes a 22-tower storey building accommodating offices, meeting rooms and a banking hall. It also has a nine-storey structure for offices, computer labs, cafeteria and lecture rooms.
Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, who spoke at the commissioning, said the Bank Square was more than a structure. He observed that it stood “as a symbol of Ghana’s aspirations as a leader in Africa’s financial ecosystem”.