Ghana Names AfDB's Ernest Addison as Central Bank Governor

(Bloomberg) -- Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo has appointed Ernest Addison as the nation's new central bank governor following the resignation of Abdul Nashiru Issahaku after only a year in the post.

Addison, an economics graduate from the University of Ghana, was director of research at the central bank from 2003 until 2011, the Presidency said in an emailed statement on Thursday. Until his reappointment today, he was the lead regional economist of the African Development Bank at its Southern African Resources Centre, the Presidency said.

“He comes across as someone who has a very good and hands-on knowledge of the Ghanaian economy, from theory to practice,” Courage Martey, an Accra-based economist at Databank Group, said by phone. Addison is likely “to strike a balance between price stability and economic growth, and not relegating the core mandate of price stability to the background.”

Issahaku, 55, said in a text message Thursday he was leaving the post for “personal reasons.” He was appointed governor in April last year by former President John Dramani Mahama, whose National Democratic Congress lost the December election to the New Patriotic Party led by Akufo-Addo.

Rate Cuts

On March 27, Issahaku and his Monetary Policy Committee cut the benchmark interest rate for a second time in four months as the cedi recovered from record lows and inflation slowed to the lowest rate in more than three years.

The cedi rose 1 percent to 4.33 against the dollar at 9:24 a.m. in Accra, extending gains since the beginning of the month to 7.8 percent.

The central bank has scope for more rate cuts, Yvonne Mhango, a Johannesburg-based economist at Renaissance Capital, said by phone.

“It's a pro-business government that have demonstrated that they want to restore growth,” she said. “Whatever policies come, going forward, will be ones that will be supportive for growth.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at mdzawu@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Andre Janse van Vuuren, Alastair Reed