Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan, the member of parliament for Cape Coast South, has said that contrary to what certain supporters of the government have claimed, Ghana’s economy is still in trouble.
He claims that because there is less demand for foreign cash, the Ghana cedi is now worth more than Ghana’s main trading currencies, including the US dollar.
On the other hand, he continued, the supply of dollars is growing since many Ghanaians are returning from overseas and others are sending remittances to their families.
“Don’t be fooled by the appreciation of the cedi you are seeing. It is not backed by anything. (It is happening) for the simple reason that we have a homecoming and there are a lot of inflows coming in,” he said.
“Obviously, getting a staff-level agreement has reduced the speculation. So, people who were holding on to the dollar knowing that Ghana’s economy is not going to get any better have now realised that the government will abandon its wasteful expenditure because of the IMF programme,” he added.
The MP, who was speaking to journalists on the side-line of the National Democratic Congress’ delegates congress, on December 17, 2022, however, said that the depreciation of the Ghana cedi will start again after the festive period.
“The same thing happened in 2019 when the Ghana cedi was the best-performing currency and after Christmas, it went back to the worst-performing,” he added.
The Ghana cedi, has, over the past few weeks, been gaining value against Ghana’s major trading currencies, including the US dollar.
Per data from the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the cedi, as of Thursday, December 15, was buying at GH¢7.9975 to a dollar and selling at GH¢8.0056 to a dollar.
Also, the prices of petroleum products have been dropping, which has led to public transport operators announcing an over 15 percent reduction in transportation fares.