The Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, has advised the Ghanaian business community against hastily converting their cedis to US dollars.
Addressing the media in Parliament, Afenyo-Markin labeled negative remarks about Ghana’s economy as “unreasonable.”
“If a politician who does not understand business comes out just for politics, the market will respond. It is a result of, I wouldn’t say reckless, but unreasonable comments that seem to be affecting the business environment,” Afenyo-Markin said.
He recounted how the dollar rose to GH¢15.5 in 2022, but through the efforts of the then Minister of Finance, it fell to as low as GH¢8.00.
He urged the Ghanaian business community to ignore the pessimism being spread and expressed confidence that the Cedi’s situation will improve.
“I would have to urge businessmen not to change their cedis into dollars because the rate will be coming down. When it happened in 2022, a lot of people lost money because they were responding to the pessimism of the NDC at that time, believing that the Ghanaian economy was collapsing and there was no future for the economy, and rushed to change their dollars at the rate of 14 and 15 Ghana cedis.
“When the dollar rate dropped to 8 Ghana cedis, here we were; they had lost huge sums of money. So, I would encourage Ghanaian businessmen individually not to rush to respond to the pessimism. They should be optimistic,” the MP advised.
He further added that investing in Treasury bills is a better option than buying US dollars, as the government is working diligently to lower the cedi-to-dollar rate.