PAC bares teeth at BoG Governor

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is summoning the Governor Dr. Ernest Kwamina Yedu Addison of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), to appear before it to respond to questions on the report of the Auditor-General on the statement of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Payments of the central bank for 2017.

PAC was to have a public hearing with the governor and some officials of BoG, but the meeting was called off because Dr. Addison and his two deputies could not personally attend the session.

The Director of Financial Market of BoG, Stephen Kwame Opata told the committee the governor and his deputies were called to unforeseen emergencies and asked him and the Chief Internal Auditor, Stephen Yankyira Amo, to represent them.

“He was called to an unforeseen emergency and had asked us to extend his apologies for not able to make it. It is a sad start and myself and the Director of Internal Audit to represent him,” he stressed.

The Chairman of the Committee, James Klutse Avedzi, who announced the summons, asked about the two deputies and Mr. Amo responded: “They have all been tied up in unforeseen emergencies and they have asked me to extend their sincere apologies to the Committee for not being able to come.

But Avedzi persisted: The letter we sent was inviting the Bank of Ghana headed by the governor and I believed you received it and the governor decided you the directors should come and communicate to us verbally this morning that they would not be able to attend?

“Thank you Mr. Chairman. What we will do is to, if the committee will allow, follow with a letter for their inability to attend in person,” the BoG Director of Financial Market retorted.

However, members of PAC said the governor and his deputies had not shown respect to them as MPs and insisted that the public hearing be deferred, compelling the Chairman to issue a summons for Dr. Addison to appear before the committee on Wednesday.