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No shortage of brains in GH, so why?

No shortage of brains in GH, so why?

Can somebody tell me why it has become so imperative for the Bank of Ghana to spend money to advertise the features of the two cedi coin? I am not convinced that this is profitable use of the taxpayer’s money. Such prodigality! I could cry.

Did anyone take note of the unmatched calibre of Ghanaians serving on the Fiscal Council and Financial Stability Council? It is chaired by Dr Paul Acquah, former Governor of the Bank of Ghana and (please, take note) former Deputy Director of the Africa Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Other members are Professor Eugenia Amporfu, Dr Nii Noi Ashong, Professor Augustine Fosu, Dr Nii Kwaku Sowa, Professor Robert Osei and Ali Nakyea. Heavyweights of international renown.

Their duty, among others, is to “strengthen and reinforce the stability of the financial sector.”

To them, add Alhaji Bawumia (himself!), Osafo Marfo, Anthony Akoto Osei (the economist I admire) and Kojo Kwarteng. That’s an unbeatable economic think-tank.
Not small – as we say in Ghana.

Yet the last time I checked, it takes GH¢5.60 to buy one dollar. I won’t bore you with the percentage increase. It was GH¢5.85 to the dollar in March 2019.

Ghana is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to establish a Fiscal Council. We are also the second country in sub-Saharan Africa, after Mauritius, to establish a Financial Stability Council. The raison d’etre: To help tie the hands of politicians in ensuring prudent macroeconomic management,” especially during election years.

Of course, the exchange rate crisis was no better under the preceding political regime where President Mahama took the cedi from $1.00 - GH¢1.85 in May 2012 to $3.79 in May 2016.

So alarming was the rate at which the cedi was tumbling that on July 16, 2015 Yours Truly wrote on this very page in this very Daily Graphic about Dr Wampah, Bank of Ghana governor at the time, as follows: “Injecting $20 million a day of borrowed money into an economy is pure Wampahnomics… Though I am relieved by the sudden surge of power in the cedi, I cannot jump because the relief is temporary. In English Language it is called cold comfort.” Check the figures a few months after the dollar injection: I was proved right, though my Econs is only A-Level.

Fast forward to August 2018. Myjoyonline quoted a Bank of Ghana source as saying that “the central bank has pumped $283.4 million into the banks to meet daily demands for foreign exchange as global pressures cause the cedi to depreciate”

In March 2019, the Daily Graphic reported that “The Bank of Ghana says it will add a minimum of $800 million to the country’s reserves this month to stabilise the cedi against the major international currencies, especially the dollar.”

Why does nothing seem to be working?

This week, an economic expert, interviewed on radio, blamed the cedi depreciation on excessive imports (as if we didn’t know that before!), but he quickly admitted that no country could do without imports; that even America, China, Russia, etc. import.

Makes sense. But, what does Ghana import for which it critically needs a stepping up of dollar supply into the economy?

One, we import religion. According to a disclosure on Peace FM a few months ago, confirmed by my own checks, Ghanaian branches of foreign-based churches call at our forex bureaux every (repeat, every) Monday with sacks of cedis to buy dollars to be sent to headquarters, mostly in Nigeria. I think this is un-Christian; it is the work of greedy tycoons in cassock and collar. What gospel do they preach?

As a country with reputable economists, however, you don’t solve this problem by appealing to the consciences of these “men of God”: they have none. Was it Chaucer, the English writer, who said (as far back as 1746) that “their conscience is their stomach”? Too many of us are greedy; unfortunately we don’t have governments with the ability to check the spread of greed.

Would it be asking too much to expect that we generate a list of imports which we consider critical? Outside of this list, forex bureaux should be barred from selling the dollar, euro, pound sterling to meet any import demand.

Only this week, a group of Ghanaian importers organised a press conference. Their cry is that the government should increase the allocation of foreign currencies to them from $50,000 to $200,000!

How much will be left for repatriation of profits by investors, and for manufacturers who need essential raw materials that must be imported?

If it takes rocket science to solve this challenge, I beg to remind us that Ghana has no shortage of rocket scientists. Call Dr Aveh Kludze. Send a whatsapp messsage to Dr Ashitey Trebi Ollenu or Dr Thomas Mensah…… Have we asked ourselves how the billionaires in Ghana come by the money to stock the ever-multiplying number of shopping malls in this country? Since 98 per cent of goods sold in these shops are imported, since items sold in there are bought with cedis, and since it takes dollars, euros and pounds sterling to re-stock these malls, is it rocket science to conclude where they obtain their foreign currencies from?
Certainly (and I pray), it can’t be Bank of Ghana!

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