World Bank conducts diagnostic study on the Ghanaian economy

The World Bank is currently conducting a diagnostic study on the Ghanaian economy.

According to the World Bank, the study will reveal whether the appreciable growth of the economy over the years will be sustainable in the coming years. 

The Ghanaian economy is expected to grow by about 1.96% this year to become one of the highest in the world despite the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Regional Director for sustainable development Western and Central Africa Simeon Ehui explained that the country's reliance on natural resources will not help the growth of the economy.

"We are currently doing what we call a ... Free Diagnostic for Ghana which will be published soon. We are going to look at the sustainability of the growth of the economy of Ghana which may not be sustainable over the next few years if we continue to be dependent on the natural resources base."

In a related development, the Bank of Ghana is also conducting a diagnostic study on specialised deposit-taking institutions including Savings and Loans Company.

The exercise is to be done before setting the new capital requirement for the Tier 2 category of financial institutions.

The diagnostic study will enable them to know the true positions of the savings and loans companies, finance houses and rural and community banks.

The current minimum capital for savings and loans and financial houses is 15 million cedis.

 Speaking on the exercise, Banking Consultant Richmond Atuahene said there is a need for the exercise to be undertaken to allow the Central Bank to know the true position of the institutions.

According to him, the finance houses are also doing their homework to position themselves better for the new announcement.

"They are doing a diagnostic study to find which banks will have to bring in more capital...until they complete this exercise it will be very difficult for anybody to set the capital limit for them. Because there is a serious ongoing diagnostic study some of the savings, microfinance and rural banks are still doing their homework to find out how to clean the bad debt position and the nonperforming... to see what capital level can be set as they did for the banks."

He advised that we should exercise restraint for the Central Bank to do its work and later announce the new capital regime.

"Let's exercise restraint for Bank of Ghana to complete this exercise and when they are done they will tell us this will be the new capital regime..."

The capital regime will help sanitise and create a strong financial system that will help secure the deposits of Ghanaians.