President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured the government will continue with the implementation of the programmes that have resulted in the strengthening of the Cedi and other economic indicators.
Over the past few days, especially since the start of December 2022, the Cedi has been gaining strength against the major trading currencies notably, the Dollar.
Per the Bank of Ghana (BoG) rate, the Cedi, as of Thursday, December 15, was buying at GHS7.9975 to a Dollar and and selling at GHS8.0056 to a Dollar.
Analysts including the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Dr John Kwakye asked the government to act immediately to consolidate the gains made.
Speaking at the centenary celebration of the Ga presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Accra on Sunday December 18 the President indicated at the height of the challenges there were some who doubted the capabilities of the government to return the nation back onto the path of progress and and prosperity and lift the citizenry out of our current problems.
He said, “In those dark moments, my fellow Ghanaians and congregation, I could only recount the words of the St Matthew chapter 19 verse 26 which states ‘But Jesus looked at them and said to them, with men this is impossible but with God all things are possible.”
“With the appropriate policy, determination and hard work on our part things are beginning to turn around. What seemed impossible yesterday is now becoming possible. We are definitely not yet out of the woods. However, today, the Cedi is rapidly appreciating against the US Dollar and all major currencies, making up for its losses and the prices of petroleum products are reducing at the pump.”
“The strengthening of the Cedi has not happened by chance but through the implementation of deliberate policies by government in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana.”
“These include Cedi liquidity tightening measures resulting in the offloading of forex as stalled value by speculators, the improvement of forex inflows from remittances and the mining sector and the reaching of the staff level agreement with the IMF for a 3 billion US Dollar package. All these have combined to bring the Cedi to this position and I can assure you that government will continue to work hard to maintain and sustain the gains made.”
President Akufo-Addo assured BoG will continue with the purchases of forex from the mining and oil sectors to enhance liquidity supply to the markets, continue with the single unified forex forward auction and some modest targeted bilateral support to critical import.”