The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has been lauded for temporarily stopping commercial banks from importing dollars into the country for their foreign exchange transactions.
According to Dolapo Ogundimu, Managing Director of Access Bank Ghana, despite the fact that commercial banks were suffering the consequences, the measure would curb the rising incidence of �dollarisation� in Ghana.
�Currently, all commercial banks have been restrained from importing dollars into the country. Though it is not pleasant for our businesses, I think it is doing the country a lot of good by cutting back the payment of transactional obligations in dollars.
�In the USA, under no circumstance will the Ghana Cedi be accepted as legal lender for any payment. Businesses there will definitely go for the dollar. So, I don�t see why dollars should be allowed to be used as payment for transactional obligations.�
Mr Ogundimu was speaking to journalists on Monday in Accra shortly after the BoG announced that it had lifted a six-month sanction it imposed on Access Bank Ghana, which took effect from July 23, this year.
The payment of school fees, purchase of vehicles, airline tickets, mortgage loans and rent, among others, are effected in dollars currently. Even service providers are said to be quoting exchange rates that are significantly unrealistic.
Ghana�s laws allow both residents and non-residents to operate foreign exchange accounts. Ghana�s cedi has been holding firm against the dollar in recent times following the BoG�s directive.
An industry analyst argued that the �dollarization� of the economy has been fuelled by the recent rush of Ghanaian traders to China to import goods.
�Such Ghanaian traders buy dollars before they proceed to China to buy any product of their choice. By that, demand for the dollar goes up while the local currency depreciates,� the anonymous analyst stated. To address the problems, BoG directed all commercial banks to keep 9 percent of their reserves with it.
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