<<Print>>

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) on Wednesday announced additional measures to move up the cedi against the major foreign currencies in the country. It directed that all money transactions in the country should be done in Ghana Cedis and not the US dollar. At a press conference on Thursday, the BoG also increased the monetary policy rate by 200 basis points to 18 per cent. Dr. Kofi Wampah, Governor of BoG said the increment was necessitated by the recent global and domestic developments and the Bank�s assess risks to the outlook. Mr. Sydney Casely Hayford, chartered accountant and financial consultant commenting on these issues in an interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi said the measures being implemented by the BoG to save the cedi were long overdue. According to him, none of those measures were new; �they are part of an existing law but failure to implement them has caused this situation� (fall of the cedi). ��they should have done it long time ago. It is part of an existing law and so it is nothing new. If they are able to enforce this, things will get better� he noted. Mr. Hayford explained that the BoG is not asking Ghanaians not to have dollars but to be careful in using it and make sure it is within the law. Mr. Hayford admitted that the measures will encourage black market but added; �that is also against the law�it has always been against the law�but the problem is government�s inability to implement the law.� He also added that the new measures �will slow things down temporary but when we get used to it, we will just carry on. It will be a strain on some people but we have to get used to new changes�in any game somebody loses a little. Nobody is saying you can�t have dollars. You can have dollars but you have to be careful how you use the dollars. You have to make sure it is within the law.� He however advised government to put measures in place to increase productivity and decrease importation because the measures being put in place by the BoG can only save the situation in a short time; indicating �this will work but in the long term we will come back to this in the future.�