President Nana Akufo-Addo
PRESIDENT AKUFO-Addo has expressed serious concern about the activities of black market operators in the forex market.
He said their activities are partly responsible for the abysmal performance of the Ghana cedi against the US dollar and the other major trading currencies.
At a meeting with leadership of the Forex Bureau Association of Ghana at the Jubilee House in Accra yesterday, he stressed the urgent need to stop such activities henceforth.
“The initial impulse for the creation of forex bureaux in Ghana was that at the time when our economy was opening up and liberalising, there was the need to find a mechanism for putting an end to black market operations on the country’s currency,” he said.
“That was the initial impulse, so we will have these forex bureaux regulated by the Bank of Ghana but which will make access to foreign exchange in a regulated and controlled manner easier,” he emphasised.
Unfortunately, however, he indicated that “somehow, this initial motivation for the creation of the forex bureaux has still not materialised.”
“As you hear public commentators and commentators of the Bank of Ghana itself say, it is still the black market that is driving both the supply as well as the rate of our foreign exchange transactions,” he noted with worry.
“That, for me, is completely unacceptable and we have to find a way to work together to drive the black market out of business,” the President said.
President of Forex Bureau Association of Ghana, K.T. Dadzie, welcomed the meeting with the President on the forex exchange challenges in the country.
He said forex bureaux in the country are a regulated body and do not have much control beyond what the regulator tells them to do.
For the past three months, he said it has not been easy for them [forex bureaux operators], and their customers.
“We have been in this business since 1988. We have had turbulences but this is a bit tough for all of us,” he noted.
He was, however, confident that “this too shall pass.”
“With the announcement that we were even meeting yesterday, the rate started coming down. It means it is not natural; this has all been done by people’s speculation and trying to make a windfall out of our current situation,” Mr. Dadzie said.
BY Charles Takyi-Boadu