FREE PRESS

"Shocking revelation by CEPA...Govt 'steals' 573 billion cedis outside Bank of Ghana", is the splash headline in the Free Press. The accompanying story says the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government's lack of ideas in running a prudent national economy has been exposed by the Centre for Economic Policy Analysis (CEPA). In a mid-year economic review for this year, to be released by CEPA in two weeks' time, the Free Press quotes the Centre as saying that short of realising the projected economic growth of 5.5 per cent and budget surplus of 200 billion cedis, the government had resulted to trading in bonds amounting to 573 billion cedis for the first half of this year alone. The Free Press says the revelations were made by Dr Nii Noi Ashong, a fellow of CEPA when he delivered a speech at a luncheon hosted by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce (GNCC) at the Novotel Hotel in Accra. According to Dr Ashong, the year-on-year inflation has reached between 38 and 39 per cent by mid-year, 1997, even though the Bank of Ghana and the Statistical Service claimed that the inflation rate was only 29 per cent by July this year. GRI