Stephen Amoah, a member of the finance committee of Parliament has said that successive governments, especially in the Fourth Republic have failed in finding solutions to stabilise the local currency.
The MP for Nhyiaeso said the continuous depreciation of the Ghana cedi in previous and the current government is an indication of the lack of a long-term plan by the country to tackle the menace.
Speaking to Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin on Tuesday (22 March), Amoah called for a collaborative effort to produce a lasting national strategy in solving the cedi depreciation against major trading currencies.
He said: “The fact of the matter is that all successive governments including my government, in my opinion, which I could be wrong, have not adopted a long-term approach and technique needed to solving this ritual problem of our currency. So, the currency situation in Ghana is like a child with sickle cell, once there’s a small shock, even dust, there’s a crisis.”
“…But unfortunately, both recent fraternities, NDC and NPP have been using it for politics. Other than that, a country where almost everything that we use is imported. So, how can anybody say that he can solve currency problems in the country in the very jurisdiction that we are demanding everything from outside?” he asked.
National strategic framework needed
“If we don’t change our way of solving currency issue in Ghana, we should forget. Anytime there’s a shock, we have a problem. We need to design and develop a long-term approach so that common item that can be produced in Ghana are given the needed resources to do so.
“For a long time now, we have not been able to position ourselves to strengthen our cedi and make it competitive against foreign currency because of the same liquidity and risk factors, we’re importing all of them. We have failed [in stabilising the cedi] because we’ve not been able to come out with a long-term strategic framework and execute them successfully and all governments have failed,” Amoah said.
Source: Asaase Radio
