According to him, Ghanaians should blame the Central bank for the weakness of the cedi rather than the government.
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Govt injecting $800m to halt cedi's fall "most useless" - Kwame Pianim
Ghanaian business economist and investment consultant, Andrews Kwame Pianim has described measures adopted by the government to tackle the fall of the cedi against major trading currencies as "most useless and disgraceful".
Andrews Kwame Pianim
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The local currency is still struggling to stabilise against the major international currencies with the US dollar, currently selling at GH¢5.86 to a $1.
The Bank of Ghana announced that it will release some $800 million onto the market to curb the cedi's depreciation.
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The Central Bank said it expects the cedi to stabilise against major international currencies especially the dollar.
The Head of Financial Markets at the central bank, Steven Opata said, the accumulation of more dollars would help increase the net international reserve (NIR) to around $4 billion, enough to provide confidence in the system and help stabilise the free fall of the local currency.
He said one of the strategies it was adopting "is rebuilding reserves to face more systemic shocks that may come."
"I am very optimistic that it will not be long before we see stability and some recovery in the cedi," he added.
But the celebrated economist, Kwame Pianim said the recent injection of billion dollars into the economy by the central bank to stabilise the failing Ghana cedi is the "most useless".
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Speaking at an economic forum held in Accra on the theme: 'The Ghana cedi, breaking the cycle of depreciation', he said "In 1988, we brought the two – the black market rate and the official rate together – that’s when we set up the forex bureaus to try to mobilise the dollars in the private sector and put it in the main sector.
"Now, we have a market-determined one, and the central bank sometimes has moved in with $700 million to stabilise the cedi. It is the most useless and disgraceful use of our hard-earned foreign exchange that should be used for transforming the economy.
"Instead of using that [for that purpose], you can use it for processing tomatoes so that we don’t import, for rice so that we don’t import."
He noted that the work of the Central bank needs to be restructured to save the economy.
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"For a steady long-term approach, as I’ve said, we need to move to restructure the economy.
"We should not blame the government for the cedi depreciation," he added.
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