“People are carrying more than a million dollars out of Ghana without declaring it,” Bank of Ghana Governor Dr Johnson Asiama has revealed.
Speaking on Joy News’ yet-to-be-aired PM Express Business Edition, he described such practices as major leakages that threaten the stability of the economy and undermine efforts to fight money laundering.
“If you look at the currency declaration context framework, for example, the intel we got was that some people actually take out, you know, large volumes of cash.
“People are carrying over a million dollars just out of Ghana, without declaring these, those are leakages, right?” Dr Asiama said.
“And so as a regulator, it is for us to work together with the other regulators, GRA and the others to ensure that if you have to carry such large sums, these are accounted for.
“These are declared. The sources are known. And don’t forget, that’s also good for the anti-money laundering fight that we have on our hands.”
The Governor stressed that the central bank’s recent market notices are not arbitrary but are aimed at sealing such loopholes.He said the Bank of Ghana is redefining the framework to ensure efficiency and accountability in financial transactions.
“We are just, you know, redefining the framework within which the market has to work and work efficiently.
“These are things we should have been enforcing, but given the context in which we are, we’ve seen clearly that we need to set those boundaries clearly so that the markets can function and function properly,” he explained.
Dr Asiama dismissed suggestions that the Bank of Ghana is overreacting to pressures in the financial market.
“No, not at all. We are only taking advantage of what we are seeing to fix the market. It is like you have a soccer match, right? There’s a context within which the game has to be played, and so that’s exactly what we are doing.”
On the controversial notice restricting large withdrawals, he justified the move, citing findings from the central bank’s investigations.
“If you look at one of the notices, for example, on large withdrawals, that again was in response to the feedback that we got from our investigations, where you find certain corporates who earned money through export rights into their FCA accounts, and then they would want to withdraw these in large amounts.
“Imagine a corporation wanting to withdraw $10 million over the counter. The fact is, what do they use that for? Because their payments are abroad, they don’t carry physical cash to go and settle anything.
“And so the point we made there was that corporations like that do not need that cash locally. Any payments they want to make abroad will be made anyway. And so we said no, for such corporations, they can afford to play in that regime.”
He noted that ordinary individuals would not be affected in the same way.
“For individuals like you and me, probably you need your few $100 or $200 to do something, that’s understandable.
“You can negotiate with your bank, and then you would have a choice whether you want to take those few dollars, or you want to pay the commission, or you want them to change it into cedis for you; you are at ease to do that.”
The Governor insisted that the measures were well thought through, with full involvement of the banking sector.
“Let me also explain that we do not just issue these notices. We met with the banks. We met with the CEOs of banks a number of times. We took on board the feedback from them.
“And so you will see that the banks are silent. They are not complaining. It’s because they were consulted. We thought through this together before the notices were issued. And so we are confident that the notices will help.”
