The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, has stated that the bank followed all the necessary public procurement processes to construct a new head office building.
“No procurement laws were broken. I have requested that a more detailed response to the issues raised in the public discourse on the bank’s new head office building be published on our website immediately after this press engagement today,” he stated at a special press conference in Accra yesterday.
The press conference was to respond to issues raised in the 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statements of the bank and the construction of the new head office building which had attracted attention of the media and the minority in Parliament.
The bank has come under criticisms from a section of the public for constructing a new head office amidst economic difficulties facing the country, and at a cost perceived to be on a higher side.
Dr Addison said the idea to construct a new head office building for the BoG was as far back as the 1990s when the bank began the search for a suitable and secured land for a new head office.
He said in 2012, the bank was allocated an unnumbered 5.19-acre land at Accra Central by the Lands Commission but the bank did not have access to the land since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration refused to give the bank vacant possession on the grounds that they had never agreed to give up ownership of the land.
Dr Addison said the bank continued to search for suitable land for its head office throughout the period from 2013 to 2016.
“More recently in 2018, the bank approached the SIC to acquire its vacant land at Ridge near the Ridge Hospital. The government issued an Executive Instrument to allow the Bank of Ghana acquire that land and SIC was duly compensated,” the Governor stated.
He said the decision to commence construction was taken in 2019 when the bank generated profits and the project had been running for the past three years and was about 50 per cent complete, adding that appropriations for the head office building were made each year from profits in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Given that the construction of a new head office of the BoG is a national security issue, Dr Addison said the bank wrote to the Public Procurement Authority on January 14, 2020 for approval to use the Restricted Tender Method and the request was approved and Goldkey Properties was selected among MAN Enteprise, WBHO Ghana Limited, De Simone Limited and Ronesans Construction to execute the project.
Dr Addison said the bank took into consideration the need to ensure the building met all the requirements of a modern central bank of international standards (similar to central bank head office buildings in Abuja and Dakar).
The Governor said the projects included provision for data centres, currency processes, vaults, and other sensitive installation, stressing “It is not just a simple ordinary building.”
Touching on the cost of the new head office building estimated at $250 million, Dr Addison responded “The bank is fully aware of its responsibilities to ensure that the costs do not escalate beyond reasonable levels and that many of the original design features including data centre, currency processing centre, ICT equipment, specialised security features have been deferred and only grey boxes provided for future use to manage costs.”
BY KINGSLEY ASARE