Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has refuted claims by the Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, that he was a member of the Bank of Ghana Board when the processes for the construction of the bank’s new head office began.
In a press release, Dr. Forson said that the claim is a “desperate attempt [by the NPP] to defend the indefensible.”
He said that the Bank of Ghana under the erstwhile Mahama/NDC administration never awarded a contract for the construction of the new head office and that the bank never purchased a land anywhere in Accra for the construction of the building.
“For the record, I was not part of the processes for the construction of this new Head Office building, and the Bank of Ghana Board never began such processes for the construction of this new Head Office building at Ridge. We maintain that the decision by the current Bank of Ghana Management and Board to construct an ultra-modern Head Office building at a time when the Bank of Ghana has recorded a loss of GhS60.8 billion and a negative equity of GHS55.1 billion; at a time when the ordinary Ghanaian is struggling to make ends meet, is a reckless and misplaced priority.”
“No attempt at equalisation can redeem the historical collapse and mismanagement of the Bank of Ghana by this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government, alongside Governor Addison and his management. The countdown to the resignation of the Governor and his deputies is still on,” Dr. Forson added.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) at a press conference on Tuesday, August 8, accused the Bank of Ghana of building a new head office at an alleged amount of $250 million.
The Bank of Ghana subsequently justified the construction of the project insisting that its current head office, built in the 1960s, is no longer fit for purpose.
