The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has maintained the lending rate at 14.5 per cent.
Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, made this known in a Live Facebook address on Friday, May 15.
He says the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) took the decision to keep the policy unchanged.
Addison observed that this was because of some risk to the inflation outlook.
It would be recalled that in March 2020, BoG reduced the policy rate by 150 basis points from 16 per cent to 14.5 per cent.
It was the first time since 2019 that the BoG had dropped the policy rate.
Before then, the Central Bank had since 2019, maintained the rate for six consecutive times.
Dr Addison observed that
“The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economic activity, created uncertainty, and weakened global growth conditions.”
He said “Countries have imposed restrictions and social distancing measures, and in some cases lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus.”
“These measures have come at a cost to the global economy forcing fiscal and monetary authorities to implement unprecedented policy measures to deal with the economic fallout.”
“For instance, the U.S. Fed cut its policy rate by 150 basis points to a range of 0-0.25 percent in March 2020 and made US$1.5 trillion available for short-term interbank lending among other liquidity measures,” he added.
