A former Executive Director of the Standard Chartered Bank, Alexander Kofi-Mensah Mould, has poked holes in the Bank of Ghana’s publication of the interbank foreign exchange rates.
According to him, the act by the Central Bank to understate the rates is a means to also understate the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio.
Alex Mould explained in a Myjoyonline.com report that the BoG’s rates are a false representation of the actual figures on the market.
He also alleged that the rate at which the bank supplies forex to commercial banks and bulk oil distribution companies is higher than what it publishes.
According to him, on January 12, 2023, while the rate published by banks was GH¢12.5 to a dollar, BoG auctioned the dollar at ¢10.51 per dollar but published the rate as ¢9.05.
He said, “the big issue is that BoG seems to be doing the hatchet job for government by misrepresenting the real interbank rate.”
Alex Mould further alleged that the Bank of Ghana deliberately kept the rates low during the latter part of 2022.
“Ergo, if BoG had used the 11-12 cedis per dollar rate which was what the real interbank rate was, we would have seen our debt number go up,” he was quoted by myjoyonline.com.
“The portion of Ghana’s debt denominated in foreign currency is about $30 billion; using the market exchange rate of 11-12 cedis per dollar would’ve taken our total debt far above the 500-billion-cedi mark,” he added.
He added that “it implies that the Bank of Ghana may be deliberately keeping the inter-bank rate low so that government’s debt per GDP number would look good…..this is misleading!”
