Oppong-Nkrumah Gives Updates:

Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi and the Ranking Member on the Economy and Development Committee, on Tuesday August 5, took to his Facebook wall to give an update on the Committee’s work.

He wrote:

Parliament is on recess. The Economy and Development Committee is winding down on our work. Monday, we met with the Bank of Ghana to take a look at half-year data.

1. About $ 1.7 billion of fuel cargo was financed by the Gold for oil program according to the BOG. Ignore the propaganda that there was no gold for oil program.

2. Prices of Gold have shot up by about 43% and Cocoa by about 90% between H1 2024 and H1 2025, leading to strong forex earnings to support the cedi. Additionally, the BOG has intervened with over $ 2 billion USD from our reserves to push the cedi. In response to worries about sustainability, the BOG is commencing a program to hedge a portion of our Gold reserves. The Gold purchase program has been a masterstroke.

3. The BOG has sterilized about 60 billion cedis from the economy since Jan. We argue that a better approach would have been to have it channeled to productive funds like the VCTF and GSE. We urge a reversal and a rechanneling, so this liquidity can impact growth and jobs.

4. ⁠The complains about dollar shortage are real. The BOG is starting an investigation of the commercial banks Nostro holdings and Net Operating Positions to determine the cause. This is because on their side, the BOG believes there is enough forex. Meanwhile, the market says demand is being suppressed to keep a fixed rate. We await the details of the investigation in about a month.