Tano North Member of Parliament Dr Gideon Boako has offered further clarification on the disputed claim that the previous government was restricted by an $80 million monthly limit on foreign exchange interventions under Ghana’s IMF programme.
Dr Boako says the ceiling applied specifically to direct interventions by the Bank of Ghana and was initially fixed at $80 million each month before being reduced to $60 million. He maintains that the previous administration complied with the agreed limits while working to strengthen the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
The lawmaker also rejected arguments that Ghana’s reported $3 billion in foreign exchange sales disproves the existence of the intervention ceiling. He explained that the figure covered different operations conducted by the central bank, including its rules-based foreign exchange auction and discretionary interventions.
According to Dr Boako, these two activities should not be treated as the same because an auction follows a predetermined process, while direct intervention is used by the central bank to respond to movements and instability in the currency market.
He further explained that details of the intervention limit were not openly included in some published IMF documents because such information was considered sensitive to the foreign exchange market. He argued that publicly revealing the precise ceiling could have encouraged speculation against the Ghanaian cedi.
Dr Boako’s latest comments form part of an ongoing political debate over former Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s claims about the restrictions imposed during the previous IMF programme.
