Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Visionary leaders are innovative, their ideas in response to challenges serving as blueprints for the future.
The strength of the Cedi has attracted public attention and discussion in the past few weeks. It has also courted controversies among political players of the two dominant parties.
In an earlier commentary, we demanded that credit must be accorded where this is due.
The source of the strength of the Cedi against the dollar has continued to maintain its place on the front burner of public discussion, with propaganda playing out loudly expectedly.
We have observed that the man credited with the innovation which has witnessed the unusual strength of the Cedi has been prompted to pose a question.
It is a question which adds to the public discourse on what by all standards is a significant subject.
For a government which is not yet five months at the helm and has therefore not initiated any projects, let alone pay contractors among others, it is impossible for the monetary dividends being witnessed to be attributable to it.
This is an economy which President John Mahama said was criminally managed yet whose currency has posted such virility within five months.
We join Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in asking what policy introduction the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has initiated which accounts for the status quo?
There cannot a convincing answer to such a question. All that we would get is the usual propaganda rhetoric on the airwaves and social media.
Dr. Bawumia while talking about the depreciating local currency a few years ago, the reason for which among others is the whopping amount of money used to import oil annually, announced a solution: government buying gold and storing same would reverse the sorry state of the Cedi against foreign currencies.
Today, the storage of gold at the apex bank is a policy which is the brainchild of the former Vice President.
The phenomenal increase in the quantity of gold in the state’s vault and the Gold for Oil policy have both impacted on the strength of the local currency beyond compare.
The change in name of the Precious Mineral Marketing Company to Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) does not change the concept of the state buying gold and increasing the tonnage of the commodity.
Politics should be an occupation of integrity, not propaganda.
In an uncoordinated fashion, the NDC has the varied reasons for the state of the Cedi today.
On May 8, 2025, the Bank of Ghana Governor, Dr. Johnson Asiama was sincere when he said the current gold reserves are helping in stabilising the Cedi against foreign currencies.
On May 13, 2025, the Finance Minister, Dr. Ato Forson said the situation was the result of our gold and other frame policies while speaking during the inauguration of the GoldBod Board of Directors.
President John Mahama, on the other hand, on May 20, 2025, said the Cedi’s stability was anchored by 10.6 billion dollars reserves.
Sammy Gyamfi, on his part, stated on his Facebook page that the situation was not attributable to the accumulation of gold reserves, but because of the minister’s monetary policies.
The foregone represent the uncoordinated propaganda about the state of the Cedi today.
If the quantum of gold is responsible for the state of the Cedi today, who originated the concept of buying and increasing our gold reserves?