The Central Bank said it expects the cedi to stabilise against major international currencies especially the dollar.
The cedi has weakened by 8.6 percent this year (2019).
To stabilize the cedi against major international currencies, the Bank of Ghana has said that it will add a minimum of 800 million dollars to the country’s reserves this month.
The BoG said the build-up of the US Dollar would help increase Ghana’s net international reserves to about $4billion, an amount that will boost confidence in the system and assist in stabilizing the local currency.
In an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, Dr. Lord Mensah said the BoG’s decision to step in at a time as this is needful however the government must also pay attention to investing in more long term measures.
“The Central bank understands what it is doing and knows that an amount like eight hundred million dollars is enough to stabilize the cedi at the moment, it will, however, come at a huge cost in terms of where they will get the money from to do that.”
“Government must, however, do more to come with long term measures to deal with the depreciation of the cedi.”
Dr Lord Mensah said the BoG must also regulate the activities of forex bureaus in the country because he believes, the free market is a major contributing factor to the depreciation of the cedi.
“I do not see why we have so many forex bureaus in the country, elsewhere in order to have access to foreign currencies you will have to go to a bank. I believe it is time the central bank to reduces the number of forex bureaus in the country because the free market in which they are operating is accounting to the depreciation of the cedi.”
