Cedi depreciation: Government not responsive to economic crisis – John Gatsi

The Dean of the University of Cape Coast Business School (UCCBS), Prof. John Gatsi has accused the government of failing to roll out measures to address the rapid depreciation of the Ghana cedi against the US dollar. Speaking to Starr News, Prof. John Gatsi contended that the government’s posture does not demonstrate that the nation is in crisis. “You have exhausted what is called the short-term measures because the thing is demand and supply and you don’t have the resources for the next move. But you can also do things that will give positive signals and yet we are not doing that. “In fact, in the past two weeks we have not been behaving like we are in a crisis,” the Dean of UCCBS stated. Touching on the discussions on an IMF-supported program, John Gatsi advised the government to be open on how it is handling the debt restructuring with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “If you have sent a five-member committee to collect facts for debt management strategy, the debt management strategy by the Financial Management Act is the job of the Finance Minister and his team. If in their opinion they are done and you cannot open up that you are doing debt restructuring then the approach is wrong. “People will read different kinds of meaning. Especially on the back of during the Financial and Banking sector clean-up, people had their money locked up and at a point, the investment of citizens were forced into mutual funds against their will. There are people who cannot also access their locked-up funds up till today,” Mr. Gatsi stated. He continued: “So if the government is going to be empowered to determine the sense of elongation then the citizens have to know the maturity period of their investment. As well as to also know whether they may be taxed on their principal or the interest. If you are hiding this and they get to know they will be reacting and that’s what the banks are experiencing”.