Keli Gadzekpo, Dr Ashong, Comfort Ocran appointed to BoG board

The Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Wednesday inaugurated a new 13-member board for the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

The members include Dr Samuel Nii Noi Ashong, a former Vice Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) who was also a Minister of State at the Finance Ministry in President John Agyekum Kufuor's era.

The other members of the Board are the Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison as the Chairman, First Deputy Governor, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari; Second Deputy Governor, Dr Johnson P. Asiama; Charles Adu-Boahen and Dr. Sr. Eugenia Amporfu.

It also includes Keli Gadzekpo, Dr. Kwame Owusu-Nyantekyi, Jude Kofi Bucknor, Joseph B. Alhassan, Andrew Boye-Doe, Dr. Maria Hagan and Comfort Ocran.

The Vice President called on them to also look at policy impact on economic growth even as they focus on the Bank’s core mandate of price stability.

He stressed that the basic function of the Board is to assist the Bank to perform its core mandate of price stability and urged them to do that in the context of its independence as an institution.

He emphasised the need for the Board to work assiduously so that the financial sector can play its responsible role.

“Crowding in the private sector to get access to credit affordably, which means that we have to really think seriously about bringing interest rates down,” he said.

The Vice President recognised the Bank’s efforts at bringing the policy rate down added, “while we achieve macroeconomic stability, we expect the decline in the policy rate to also be transmitted to lending rates in the country among the banks”.