Redenomination needed to right the wrongs of the Ghana Cedi – Jantuah
Entrepreneur coach and politician PV Dadson Boateng Jantuah is urging the current Economic Management Team(EMT) and the Central Bank to push for redenomination of the Ghana Cedi.
He says the redenomination of the Cedi when done will help put into check the rising rate of inflation and also the depreciation of the Cedi against the Dollar.
Mr. Jantuah notes that unless this is done with a development plan, the country’s economy will continue to suffer from the shocks internally and externally.
He gave the suggestion while sharing his thought on the poor state of the economy and the hits the cedi has been experiencing against major currieries on Kumasi-based Ultimate FM monitored by MyNewsGh.com
“The situation that we find ourselves in, any economist will tell you, if we can afford the cost, we have to do redenomination again, either we remove one zero or two zeros. You can’t control anything in this country; we need at least eight to ten years with a committed plan to get ourselves out of this mess. The redenomination is a medium to long term solution” he stressed.
“We need to get our currency a bit up and that is it, ask any economist, they will tell you. It’s one of the options if we can bear the cost or if we have the means to cover the cost in printing new currency notes”, he added
In July 2007, the Cedi (¢) was redenominated to the Ghana Cedi (GH¢), such that ten thousand Cedis was now equivalent to one Ghana Cedi.
The re-denomination did not affect the intrinsic value of the currency – “the value will be the same”.
Two of the reasons given by the Central Bank for the re-denomination were the increasing difficulty in maintaining accounting and statistical records; and problems with accounting and data processing software.
Mr. Jantuah claims the 2007 redenomination was not well planned to take advantage of developing the economy to a status where it was not going to be foreign dependent.
“The first one that we did in 2007, the mistake that we did as a country was that, we should have supported it with economic development plan, because you see you cannot stabilize a country’s currency without the country attaining the status of economic development”
“Where the greater items the people use on a daily basis are manufacture and consume by it and also pursue exports for the benefit of the country. The 1D1F, the agenda was a well-crafted, there was no strategy to drive the agenda. It doesn’t make sense when the items we are trying to promote someone is vigorously importing them into the country and for all you know the imported once are cheaper than that of the once manufactured here. That defeats the agenda” he retorted.
Meanwhile the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in September also indicated that another re-denomination of Ghana’s currency, the Cedi, is about to happen following the rising rate of inflation and also the depreciation against the Dollar.
The Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Dr. John Kwakye noted that unless the managers of the economy rein in inflation and depreciation, Ghanaians should expect another re-denomination.
“If we don’t rein in inflation and depreciation, it won’t be too long before we undertake another redenomination.”
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