The Ghanaian government hopes to increase access to credit for small and medium sized businesses by stepping up pressure on commercial banks to lower interest rates. Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor described the high bank lending rates, which run at around 28 per cent per year compared to a Bank of Ghana key policy rate that has fallen to13.5 per cent, as “unacceptable”.
The Minister told a conference in Accra, “It came out clearly that overheads of the banks are going up astronomically and it's just not right. But they are doing it, hence the decision to sit down with them and look at the situation seriously”.
He said that the Finance Ministry would hold talks with the banks to ensure that they comply with the administration's policy to ease credit for businesses.
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