Accra, Aug 19, – The People’s Convention Party (PCP) today called on the government to direct the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BOG) to reverse its decision to stop charging interest on the overdrawn account of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) since it contradicts the bank’s law of 1992. In a statement issued in Accra the party said it ”shares the views of the Auditor-General on the matter and calls for immediate action on it in the interest of the nation as well as the suffering masses and the labouring poor”.
The statement said the party finds it unacceptable that although GNPC’s overdrawn account balance had been reduced from 204 billion cedis in 1994 to 145.2 billion cedis in 1995, BOG stopped charging interest with retrospective effect from June 15, 1994. ”The PCP finds it difficult to accept BOG’s reasoning that GNPC appeared not to be in a position to service the outstanding debt and therefore the bank considered further interest charges on the debt unrealisable.” The statement said further that PCP finds no basis for this preferential treatment when the corporation is still active and has not been declared bankrupt to justify the debt being declared unserviceable. ”More so, when GNPC considered itself sufficiently solvent to give away some of its immovable properties, particularly executive buildings to members of its management and others outside the corporation. ”Is the GNPC a viable commercial entity or not ?”, the statement asked. The Party said the decision is ridiculous when considered against the fact that the bank has been charging punitive interest of 42 per cent per annum on overdrawn balance of the Consolidated Fund. BOG has also never found it prudent to waive this interest charged to afford some debt relief even to the government, its major customer. GRi
