Bolga residents throng banks for New Cedi

Bolgatanga, July 3, GNA- The premises of the four main banks in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital, on Tuesday could be likened to a food rationing scenario in a refugee camp, as thousands of residents scrambled to have a feel of the new Ghana Cedi being put into circulation.

Market women, farmers, storekeepers and civil servants formed long queues in the forecourts of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), National Investment Bank (NIB) and the SG-Social Security Bank (SG-SSB) as early as 0700 hours, waiting for their turn to either make withdrawal or exchange old currency notes for new ones.

"It was easier for those who were taking their salaries because they automatically received the new Ghana Cedi in accordance with Bank of Ghana directive," said Mr Patrick Atsakpo, Branch Manager of ADB in an interaction with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga. He said he and his staff had already anticipated the rush, so they made contingency arrangement to avoid any complications. Nonetheless, some minor incidents occurred here and there, as would be expected in any new exercise of that nature. There were instances at both ADB and GCB where some customers, still not conversant with the conversion, returned to cashiers complaining that they had been under-paid although they had been given the right amount in the new currency.

At one of the banks, a cashier apparently under pressure, gave out 80 Ghana Cedis to a customer who was withdrawing eight Ghana Cedis. The customer, however, charitably drew the cashier's attention to the overpayment and returned the excess.

"We have asked our customers to be patient with us because this is money we are dealing with, and any miscalculation can cause us a lot of problems," Mr Yakubu Seidu, Manager of the GCB branch, told the GNA. As late as 1600 hours, the banks which would normally have stopped customer services at 1400 hours, were still bustling with activity as the struggle for the Ghana Cedi continued unabated.

Some of the people the GNA spoke to lauded the redenomination exercise but expressed surprise about the size of the new One Cedi note which they said should have been a bit larger. Others were not entirely convinced that the new currency had the same value as the old one. A number of workers also expressed the fear that some unpatriotic traders might try to take undue advantage of the exercise to increase the prices of commodities by a little margin, just to make up for any possible loss of profit as a result of the redenomination.