A couple of weeks ago, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) announced measures to shore up the cedi against the major foreign currencies, particularly the United States dollar.
The move followed the fast depreciation of the cedi which was estimated to have dropped by as much as 7.8 per cent, January to date, against the US dollar, creating a lot of panic and anxiety in the system.
As part of the measures, the central bank issued directives to restrict over-the-counter cash withdrawals from foreign exchange and foreign currency accounts not exceeding US$10,000, stating that that could only be permitted for travel purposes outside Ghana or its equivalent in convertible currency per person per travel.
The directive also was intended to stop all public and private institutions from charging fees for services rendered in US dollars; a phenomenon that has been allowed to fester for many decades.
To back it all up, the Minister of Finance, at a news conference, told financial journalists that the government was stopping its agencies from quoting their services and contracts in the US dollar, to lead the way in the fight against the dollarisation of the economy.
Unfortunately, major agencies of the government, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) ), the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) and the Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) have denominated their charges in US dollars and are accordingly charging them, in spite of the directives.
Since last week, the move has drawn shipping agents and the three agencies into a tango over the payment of port charges in US dollars.
The GPHA insists that it is empowered by law to receive port charges in dollars, but agents of shipping lines as well as sea-going vessels are questioning why state institutions in charge of the maritime industry continue to collect charges in US dollars instead of the Ghana cedi following the bank’s directives.
The GRAPHIC BUSINESS finds this phenomenon unfortunate and unacceptable since the directives of the Bank of Ghana were intended to save the Ghana cedi from further depreciation against the US dollar.
If state agencies, which should know better, are keen on using the US dollar as their medium of exchange and are quoting laws to back their stance, then the BoG and Ministry of Finance have no moral right to order citizens and other private businesses to stop quoting their goods and services in the US dollar.
We expect the BoG and Ministry of Finance to lead the way by pragmatically ensuring that all stakeholders, including state agencies, play according to the rules to prevent double standards in the volatile economy that we all yearn to make better.
