Govt Will Not Print Money To Pay Off Locked Up Cash Of Bank Customers …BoG Governor

The Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, has rejected unsolicited advice that the Government prints money to pay off customers of the various banking and other financial institutions, whose investments are locked up because of the recent financial sector clean up exercise.

Responding to the suggestion, Dr. Adison said such a route would rather hurt the country by evoking inflation and attendant devaluation of the local currency, the cedi.

“The issue of paying depositors funds as you rightly put it, the government has decided that we should pay, so you leave it to us and we will pay. But we are not going to pay by printing money as has been suggested because printing money to do that will not help anybody. 

“If you print money, it’s going to cause inflation, and you are going to devalue your currency. At the end of the day all of us will not gain anything out of that. So it is important that we are able to resolve these payments without resorting to printing money,” Dr. Addison said.

His response came about a week after respected Economist, Mr. Kwame Pianim suggested that government print more money and use the new prints to pay off depositors who have still not received their monies after the financial sector clean upended last year.

Up to ten banks collapsed as a result of the clean-up along with other financial houses, after the government had started the clean-up in August 2017.