Ghana must focus on structural problems to address cedi struggles – President Akufo-Addo

The Ghana cedi has been struggling against major foreign currencies this year.
The cedi has depreciated against the dollar from GHc 4.9 to over GHc 5.5 since the beginning of the year.
But President Akufo Addo beleives a stakeholders dialogue will help stop the cedi from depreciating further.

Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo has said that discussions must be held to find lasting solutions to the depreciation of the cedi against major foreign currencies.

The president was speaking at a meeting with the leadership of the Ghana Bar Association, President Akufo-Addo.

He said a public discourse must focus on turning the structural problems of the economy into fortunes.

“Our public discourse should also begin to focus on much more of the structural problems involved in our currency… there are structural problems that we so far do not articulate loudly enough in my view.”

“We live in a country where we are overly dependent on the importation of things for our daily sustenance; things that we can produce, we continue to import them. At the same time, we don’t generate enough exports,” the President added.

He explained further that “it is the issue on the current account, the persistent deficit in our national income statistics on our current account that is what gives rise to the frailty of our currency.”

The cedi has depreciated against the dollar significantly this year. The cedi has depreciated from GHc 4.9 to over GHc 5.5 for a dollar.

When the macroeconomic fundamentals started looking good after the Akufo-Addo administration took over, they touted their achievements.

The government leveraged the 2018 credit rating upgrade by the international rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, in this regard.

But the depreciation of the cedi has become a major challenge for the government.

To help address this issue the government is expected to inject capital such as the $750 million Standard Bank bridge facility to deal with the challenges the cedi is currently facing.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta commenting on the government’s short term move said: “we are going after; $300 million, $600 million and another $750 million and 3 billion and [I think] we should be okay. And all of this should happen within the next two or so weeks.”

However, the Minority in Parliament has described these measures as unsustainable.