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No profit because of cedi depreciation -GUTA tells gov't

The President of GUTA Dr. Joseph Obeng argued that they are not making profits due to the cedi depreciation since they had imported goods before the depreciation was recorded.

They argue that they are not making profits due to the cedi depreciation since they had imported goods before the depreciation was recorded.

The cedi is said to have depreciated by about 4 pesewas in mid-May.

The President of GUTA Dr. Joseph Obeng said this at a meeting with the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.

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The meeting which was held at the offices of GUTA in Accra had the government team compromising the Finance Minister, Deputy Finance Ministers, Kwaku Kwarteng and Abena Osei Asare, and the Chief Director at the Ministry Patrick Nomo.

Dr Obeng said if the government does not stabilize the local currency soon it may negatively impact the economic gains made by the government.

He said that they did not anticipate the sharp depreciation recorded in May. This has therefore caused serious troubles for traders who import goods worth thousands of dollars.

“The recent depreciation has eroded all our gains because we didn’t see it coming. When the currency depreciates sharply like that, all that it means is that we are losing capital. It means that by the time you finish selling, you will have to use more cedis to buy the same dollars to import lesser than you did in the previous month,” he said.

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Dr Obeng attributed the depreciation to what he described as multinational companies who are allowed to repatriate millions of dollars out of the country annually.

“Around this time we know all the multinational companies have filed their returns and declared all that they have, then they move the money out. When that happens, we suffer.”

“If you watch the numbers carefully, you will notice that the depreciation we are talking about is not as big as what has been recorded in the past. The most important thing is that we have gotten the fundamentals right and I can assure you that there is some stability. We expect the currency to stabilize going forward,” he said.

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