GHANA: THE DANGER OF FORCED RESIGNATION OF THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR OF THE BANK OF GHANA -By Prof John Gatsi

Any action by a government in the form of policy and strategy is an input that will generate one or multiple output(s) in the future. Creating hostile environment for an appointee to resign is indeed forced resignation.

Dr Johnson Asiamah  joined the BoG as a young man and rose to the position of deputy governor of the BoG under the former government. The noise about his resignation in the media to be replaced by another Ghanaian that the current government considers to be either a friend or a member has been going on for sometime.

One may ask, what may be the reason to ask Dr Asiamah to resign?. We can only imagine based on facts emanating from pronouncements regarding appointments to public sector positions. Intolerance of a government to accommodate all Ghanaians to work to contribute to nation building is one of the problematic ills of governance in the country .

The current governor and the first deputy governor were appointed by the current government, would there be any problem if the second deputy governor appointed by the former government remains at post?

Is there any agenda that must be executed in secrecy for which the presence of Dr Asiamah may not be conducive ? Other factors that fuel intolerance and accommodation of senior technical staff in independent institutions such as BoG to continue to serve their country include nepotism, ethnicity and cronyism. Even though these factors are not limited to developing countries, they create sustained negative economic, social, psychological  and political effects. These factors create easy roadmap for corruption and maladministration.

The replacement of Dr Asiamah will answer the question of ethnicity as Asiamah is from the Volta region, though there are other ethnic groups in the region. It is surprising that we are not doing enough to reduce how ethnicity is destroying this country. It is not for nothing that the Constitution encourage some balance in appointments to senior public sector positions .

Even if the ethnic danger is discounted, tagging the Bank of Ghana as a politicized regulatory institution at the management level will not be out of place. Investors and financial markets participants both domestic and international will lower the confidence score for the country. The effect of cronysm and nepotistic appointments is that appointments to the governor and deputy governor positions are just like ministerial appointments such that when the government is voted out of power, the governor and his deputies must exit. Perhaps this is the greatest danger for a sensitive regulatory institution.

Those who believe in fairness and rule of law may ask why should Dr Asiamah resign when his contract  is valid? Well, anybody will do same because nobody prefers hostile working environment to exit. We may get to a point where qualified, experienced and innovative young professionals will not take such appointments because of political implications.  I hope we do not get to a point where results and data generated by BoG will be accepted with suspect.