Deputy Director of Communications for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Bono Region, Eric Adjei, has alleged that in the past two years, the government has borrowed a total of GHC75 billion from the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

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He claims that in 2021, the Central Bank lent GHC35 billion to the government, and GHC40 billion the year after.

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Mr Adjei made these allegations during an interview on Peace FM's Kokroko show.

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"In 2021, Bank of Ghana printed GH35 billion. In 2020, the money spent by the government was GH55 billion. Five percent of GH55 billion is around GH2.8 billion. Government repeated the same thing in 2022, of which they printed an extra GH40 billion," he said.

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He added: "Section 30 clause 3 of the law does not permit continuous borrowing if the borrower fails to make payments to the lender.

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In the wisdom of Akufo-Addo, after failing to pay the earlier loans, the Bank of Ghana provided more loans."

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The Bank of Ghana has clarified its financing actions during the years 2020 and 2022, both marked by economic challenges arising from external and internal factors. The central bank disclosed that it provided substantial support to the government during these periods.

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In 2020 and 2022, when the economy faced the impact of both external shocks and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank of Ghana extended financial assistance to the government. Specifically, the central bank allocated GHS10 billion in 2022 to address the COVID-19 crisis, and it initiated the COVID-19 Pandemic Bond on behalf of the government.

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“First, it will be important to recall the circumstances under which the Government of Ghana decided to seek International Monetary Fund support. Ghana had lost access to the International Capital Market, domestic revenue was significantly underperforming and not realised, pushing the state of government finances into near external and domestic default. With the above, the policy choices were not that of business as usual but rather a more challenging conduct of macroeconomic policy in the context of crisis”.

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“The government needed to finance critical expenditures for which Bank of Ghana needed to provide the necessary financing to avert a disorderly default of both servicing for domestic and external debt including financing critical imports to keep the economy on the stable path”, it added.

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Furthermore, due to the closure of the capital market in Ghana, the central bank disbursed GHS37.9 billion in 2022 as budgetary support to enable the government to manage essential expenses such as salaries and debt obligations.

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