1. First, the aim of Bawumia and the NPP was to build both gold and gross international reserves to appreciable levels before seeking to inject dollars into the economy as a measure to contain depreciation. Let me say that injecting dollars into the economy for such purposes is not the most prudent thing to do continuously though. There should be pragmatic efforts to address the structural defects that keep the local currency on the depreciating path.
2. The IMF required that Ghana built its international reserves to cover at least 3 months of import. While that was not achieved Ghana was restricted to only $60-80 million as interventions. The previous NPP government, by December 2024 had exceeded this 3 months of import cover requirements by the IMF, hence the removal of the restrictions.
3. This removal is what has enabled this current government to inject virtually all the gold proceeds from January to date into the market to contain the depreciating cedi.
4. Once we achieved these levels of reserves the NPP and Bawumia declared in the 2024 manifesto that the next step was to back our currency (cedi) with gold from 2025 going. This was stated clearly in the NPP manifesto. I can see that is what the NDC is trying to implement. There are some transparency issues though that with time we will point out for the government to address for the success of the plan.
5. If this quantum of reserves had not been built by the previous government there is no way the current government could pump such huge amount of dollars into the market to contain the depreciation.
6. Clearly, Mahama rules but Bawumia’s ideas reign.
7. I worry that the current government does not seem concerned to keep building on the current reserves for future use. Bear in mind that if the NPP government had not thought about the future, we were going to suffer today. Think about the future like the NPP/Bawumia did and keep building our reserves.
8. You should thank Bawumia and the NPP for building such a solid reserve for you to enjoy. Don’t be ungrateful.
Ghana succeeds for all of us.
Shalom.
Dr. Gideon Boako (TANO NORTH MP)
