Halt depreciation of Cedi – Kufuor

Ghana will soon be buying bread with a wheelbarrow full of money if the depreciation of the local currency, the Cedi, is not checked.

Former president John Agyekum Kufuor has warned managers of the ailing Cedi to sit up else the fiscal health of the young oil-producing country will take a comatose.

“It is already more than four Cedi to a Dollar. If we are not careful, it will keep on dropping and then we get back to the days where when you want to buy bread you will have to find a wheelbarrow to carry your cedi in to go and buy,” Kufuor said at a public event in Accra to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Ideal Finance Company.

He has therefore called on the John Mahama administration to “look at our macro economic environment. Government should try as much as possible to live within its means.”

Kufuor noted: “Given the fact the world is moving into one common market of competitiveness and also the fact that Ghana is trapped into importing almost everything we use in our country, our economy is almost totally import-dependent.”

He stated the private sector has a major role to play to keep the economy in fine fettle.

“Don’t just diversify but focusing on what to do to encourage products that can be exported to earn hard currency. Without that, remaining import dependent, we will have to find the hard currency to import what we need and also to boost the cedi, because when you go to our market, they are travelling internationally to buy things to come and sell in the market.

“If you go to Togo and you offer them the Cedi in business transactions they will not accept it which is a problem for us even in the ECOWAS region,” Kufuor opined.