President John Mahama has said the measures recently introduced by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) aimed at saving the cedi from further depreciation will be reviewed to address the unintended flaws.
According to him, the measures were instituted to serve the best interest of Ghanaians saying, “as a government, we believe that the actions taken by the bank were in the best medium to long interest of the country.”
The President expressed the hope that “the review addresses the unintended implementation flaws and allay whatever fears and anxieties the public in general and the investor community in general have expressed about the measures.”
The Bank of Ghana in a bid to save the cedi from further depreciation introduced new measures to save the cedi.
As part of the measures, the BoG revised rules governing the operations of Foreign Exchange Accounts (FEA) and Foreign Currency Accounts (FCA).
It ordered authorized dealers not to sell foreign exchange for the credit of FEA or FCA of their customers.
It also stated that cash withdrawals over the counter from FEA and FCA shall only be permitted for travel purposes outside Ghana and shall not exceed US$10, 000.00 or its equivalent in convertible foreign currency, per person, per travel.
The measures have however been criticized by sections of the public who say it will not yield the needed results because they were not thorough enough.
But addressing participants at the forum to discuss and address the nation’s current economic challenges, President Mahama said: “Government was aware of the concerns raised by various quarters of the population about the effects of these measures by the Central Bank.”
He further described Ghana’s challenges as complex adding that “there are structural problems that have taken years in some cases decades to manifest.”
He however noted that government has been able to steer the economy to some of the highest growth rates on record.
Supporting his claim, President Mahama said: “In 2013, growth was a respectable 7.1 percent. That same year, the growth rate for the World Economy was 3.0 percent. The growth rate for emerging economies was 4.7 percent. The growth rate for Sub-Sahara Africa was 4.9 percent and the growth rate for the advanced economies averagely was 1.3 percent.”
The National Economic forum is being held to address challenges facing the economy.
The Forum, under the theme: “Changing the Narrative”, seek to achieve consensus on policies, strategies and measures that are required to accelerate Ghana’s transition from a lower middle income nation to an upper middle income economy.
Participants and major contributors at the forum constituted former finance ministers, former governors of the Bank of Ghana, eminent economists, political parties and parliamentarians.
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana