Let's stop opening dollar accounts in Ghana - Ayariga

2012 Presidential Candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC) Hassan Ayariga has charged government to promulgate a regulation that will stop the opening of dollar accounts in the country.

He said that would contribute to solving the conundrum of the fall of the local currency, Cedi.

“I have never seen a country whereby you go, and you open a foreign account called Ghana Cedi,” he said on TV3 on Monday, February 10, 2014.

He said no one would be allowed to open Cedi accounts in countries such as the United States of America (USA) and Ghana and so, the same policy regarding foreign currencies should be adopted here.

He said in the face of the current austere conditions facing the local currency, “we have to regulate how much dollars a foreigner can keep and how much dollar a foreigner can take out of the country.”

The businessman blamed the condition on foreign bureaux in the country, saying they hoard the dollar and release it only to sell it at high rates.

“I am worried about that because [forex bureaux] monopolise the system. They monopolise the dollar.”

Mr Ayariga recommended that the only way government can bring the situation under control is to encourage local production.

“Ghanaian businessmen should be improved and given so many resources to produce and export. Not foreigners!” Hassan Ayariga stressed.

The fall of the local currency has become a worry to regulators of the economy, with the Central Bank coming out with guidelines on the operation of Foreign Exchange and Currency Accounts last week.

Before releasing those guidelines, the Bank had injected $20 million into the economy to arrest the nosedive of the Cedi.