Vice-Prez Amissah Arthur Peddles Falsehood At IEA Debate

In seeking to defend his performance in the handling of the rapid depreciation of the cedi, as head of the Bank of Ghana, Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur, at Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate claimed that the cedi had performed better in this election year than any other election year since 1992.

According to the Vice President, the depreciation of the cedi in 2012 is 20%, and a truly unprecedented feat in the opinion of Mr Arthur.

This is not the first time the Vice President is making this claim. Indeed, the week before his vetting before Parliament, the then governor of the Bank of Ghana granted an interview on Citi FM, where he said: “I know that the record of the cedi will be an issue in this election but every election year in this country, from 1992 to date, the cedi has been destabilized. Really if you look at the data, this is the year where it has been lowest. In other years, there has been 60% depreciation, 40% depreciation in an election year. So we have learnt lessons from those depreciations and not all of them are economic factors.”

When he appeared before Parliament's Appointments Committee in August this year, Vice President Amissah-Arthur backtracked on his assertions and acknowledged that the lowest depreciation of the cedi was recorded in the election year of 2004.

However, in Tuesday’s debate, Vice President Amissah Arthur repeated the untruth about 2012 being the year in which the depreciation of the cedi had been the lowest, much to the disbelief of the audience.

It is on record that in 2004, the depreciation of the cedi was 2.2% and is the lowest of any election year in the fourth republic, which Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur duly acknowledged.

In 2000, when the NDC was in office, the cedi lost nearly half of its value after witnessing a 49.8% depreciation.

The depreciation of the cedi was brought to a lower level in 2001 when the New Patriotic Party was elected into office. In 2001, the depreciation of the cedi was a mere 3.7%, rose marginally to 4.5% in 2003 and 2.2% in 2004. Furthermore, in 2005 the cedi depreciated by 0.6%; 1.3% in 2006; and 4.1% in 2007.