Ghanaians are not impoverished – Akufo-Addo tells BBC
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said Ghana’s local currency is systematically appreciating against the US dollar.
According to him, the cedi which has suffered a sustained depreciation against major trading currencies, is beginning to firm up based on measures adopted by government to sustain the economy.
Speaking in an interview on BBC with Peter Okochwe, President Akufo-Addo asserted that Ghana’s economy remains robust contrary to current economic figures which paint a rather gloomy picture.
“It [the cedi] has begun to firm up where we are seeing the cedi systematically appreciating against the US dollar,” President Akufo-Addo indicated.
The Ghana cedi has so far this year weakened by about 20 percent against the US dollar, making it the second-weakest currency after the Russian rouble in a list of some 20 emerging market units tracked by Reuters.
To address this, the Bank of Ghana raised its monetary policy rate on March 21 to 17 percent in order to attract more investors and stabilize the cedi’s performance.
The government has also adopted a raft of measures which include the injection of some US$2 billion into the economy to stabilize the local currency.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report has indicated that the Ghana cedi recorded an 18.21 percent rate of depreciation to the US dollar in the first quarter of 2022.
It ranked the cedi as the worst among African currencies with the “Worst Spot Returns”.
