Cedi Appreciation Euphoria May Be Short-lived... - Financial Analyst

Financial analyst, Sydney Casely Hayford has admonished Ghanaians and financial experts in the country not to make hasty conclusions about the sudden rise in the cedi. Sydney Casely Hayford, speaking in an interview with host of Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" Kwami Sefa Kayi, intimated that the euphoria surrounding the cedi adjustment may be short-lived. He explained that though the cedi has risen up in value against some foreign trading currencies, particularly the US Dollar; individuals and business proprietors should remain calm and wait for four months to verify if the valuation of the cedi will keep appreciating. �We have to be sensibly cautious about the cedi appreciation and not create any false impressions,� he warned. �It is better for us to wait for four months to really establish if the currency will stabilize or not before we get excited about it�. Since the beginning of 2014, there has been a steep depreciation of the cedi against major foreign currencies. It devalued by 40 percent and there were several predictions that the cedi may further go down by 60 percent by the end of the year. Nonetheless, Ghana's currency has seen tremendous improvement after the government disclosed that it accrue $1 billion from Eurobond and $1.7 billion from the cocoa syndicated loan. Speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", Mr. Casely Hayford called on the government not to jump its gun since to him, the real value of the cedi remains unchanged. In his view, the economy can hardly survive on borrowing monies from Eurobond and cocoa syndicated loan. �The real value of the currency has not changed�We need at least 12 months to see whether or not, it will be there. If after Christmas, the value remains at 3.2/3.1; you can now say that the cedi has appreciated...�government should rather create employment opportunities so that people can generate income through which it can earn income taxes to enable it solve problems of the economy," he advised.