Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam, Casiel Ato Forson has told Ghanaians that the economic situation is deteriorating by the hour therefore they brace themselves for a very difficult six months of their life time.
He called for a national dialogue on how to deal with the challenges facing the economy.
‘This is needed to save our democracy, if you keep the problem away from the people but rather blame it on Putin, the people will not level with you when you start to take the hard economic decisions to fix the mess,” he told TV3 regarding the fall of the Cedi against the Dollar and other economic issues.
“The fixing won’t be easy, it will require a lot of sacrifices and buy in. Don’t pretend,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has identified five key reasons for the woes of the local currency.
These are “The strength of the US dollar, Investor reaction to Credit Rating Downgrade, Non-Roll over of Maturing Bonds, The sharp rise in crude oil prices and impact on the Oil Bill, Loss of External Financing.”
The measures introduced to resolve these, according to the BoG, are the “Gold Purchase Program to increase foreign exchange reserves; Special Foreign Exchange Auction for the Bulk Distribution Company’s (BDCs) to help with the importation of petroleum products; Bank of Ghana is entering into a cooperation agreement with the mining companies to provide BOG with the opportunity to buy gold as when it becomes available.
“The Bank of Ghana is supporting the banking sector with foreign currency liquidity to help meet the demand for external payments. The recently approved USD750,000,000 Afriexim loan facility by Parliament, once disbursed, will boost the foreign exchange position of the country and help restore confidence.
“The Cocoa Loan is expected in the last quarter of the year. This facility will also help provide more foreign currency to help address the cedi depreciation. In the short term, we expect that when the IMF programme is finalized, it will also go a long way to help restore confidence in the economy and drive portfolio flows.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana
