Economist, Professor William Baah-Boateng, has urged the Bank of Ghana to institute laws that ensure that forex bureaus across the country only buy foreign currencies and sell only the cedi.
According to him, this is a sure way to help control the cedi’s depreciation on the international market.
He said, Ghanaians’ easy access to foreign currency at the various forex bureaus is what has significantly contributed to the dollarisation of the economy and the subsequent tanking of the cedi.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, he said unless a Ghanaian is travelling abroad, they should not be given foreign currency.
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“I don’t understand why as a Ghanaian if I’m not travelling I can go to the forex bureau and say I need dollars. What am I using the dollars for?” he said.
He said similar laws are applied in other foreign countries like Finland and Germany where foreign currencies are not accepted in the country during transactions.
“So for me I think if the central bank, if Bank of Ghana law and regulation can be reviewed and say that forex bureau are supposed to mop-up foreign currency for the bank but not to sell, it means that if I come from outside and I need cedis I can walk to forex bureau and give them my foreign currency and get the cedis, but not get dollar and give my cedis.
“When you do that it means if I’m travelling – and it happens in many other countries and my colleagues at central bank they travel more than I do, they know. And I’ll give you Finland as one of the countries. If you enter Finland, you cannot buy any good or service with any currency like dollar or so on or even Germany.
“I was in Germany and I wanted to buy something and I didn’t have enough euros and I thought I could use my dollar, I went there they said ‘we can’t use go and change it to euro before we can use it.’ Because the rules are there so nobody will then go and buy dollar and so on.
“So you use the local currency and when you’re leaving you get to the airport, you get your boarding pass, at the last point there’s a forex bureau there you can change and get the dollar. And if we’re able to insist on this why would we need the dollar in Ghana? Why do I have to buy the dollar as a store of value?” he explained.
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