Fifi Kwetey Praises Govt Over Economic Fundamentals

Fifi Kwetey, a former Deputy Finance Minister under the previous Mills administration, has parried criticisms against government that the country’s current economic fundamentals are fragile.

Speaking at Joy Fm’s Cedi forum organized recently at the University of Ghana, Mr Kwetey said even though the local currency was facing some pressures, the economic fundamentals of Ghana were “strong today.”

He also said the cedi lost value in 2013 and 2014 under former President Mills.

According to him, the currency of a country could depreciate despite strong economic fundamentals.

Most of the people at the event were taken aback by his frank assessment of government’s performance regarding the cedi and the economy, as they expected him to fiercely criticise the incumbent administration.

Dr Said Boakye, a former economic advisor to government under the late President Mills, also described the recent reaction to the depreciation of Ghana’s currency as pointless.

According to Dr Boakye, the depreciation of the cedi was not as bad as it looked.

From GH¢4.42 to the dollar in January this year, the cedi in August was valued at GH¢4.78 to the dollar at the interbank rates.

Currently, it’s trading at GH¢4.94 at some forex bureaux in Accra while on the black market is it selling at GH¢5.

The recent decline has resulted in a drop of 6.9 per cent this year, more than the cumulative depreciation of 4.7 per cent for the whole of 2017.

Dr. Eric Osei Assibey, a lecturer at the Economics Department of the University of Ghana, on his part, stressed that the depreciation of a currency was not a problem but it was the rate of depreciation that had to be considered.

He said the local currency was doing moderately well against major foreign currencies.

The Senior Research Fellow at IFS, an economic think-tank, further revealed that after studying the cedi in the first eight months of each year from 1993 to 2018, he had noticed that the cedi had depreciated by an average of 11 percent.

He opined that the cedi had depreciated by 6.5 percent in the first eight months of this year.

“I don’t think the hue and cry this year is necessary…the cedi is not that weak now,” he emphasised.