Ranking member of parliament’s finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, has decried Ghana’s depreciation rate despite the receipt of a $750million Afrexim bank loan on August 26, 2022.
According to him, evidence from his checks on the morning of August 27, 2022, showed that the cedi is still depreciating.
Ato Forson wrote on his Twitter page: “Despite the arrival of the $750m loan, the evidence this morning suggests the cedi is still on a free fall! The cedi lost 0.50% in the last 12 hrs.”
The cedi is currently selling at GH¢10.29 to a dollar at some forex bureaus in Accra.
Earlier reports indicated that the $750 million African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) Loan has been received by the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) Account. According to myjoyonline reports, the transfer was received on August 26, 2022.
The loan facility is expected to be used for some infrastructure projects. The Central Bank will give the cedi equivalent and use the dollars to address the local currency’s depreciation.
Prior to the receipt of the loan facility, the information minister Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah stated that Ghana must ensure its exports cover increases to cushion the government’s efforts to address the cedi’s depreciation.
According to him, Ghana needs to “export more, get the dollars back into the Ghanaian economy as against what we import and we need to cut down on our import bills significantly.”
“We are importing about 400-600 million dollars of chicken, so much rice, and so much of fruit juices, there needs to be clarity on what we need to do to tone down on imports and export some more instead,” Oppong-Nkrumah said in an interview on Asaase Radio on August 22, 2022.
Despite the arrival of the $750m loan, the evidence this morning suggests the cedi is still on a free fall!
The cedi lost 0.50% in the last 12 hrs. pic.twitter.com/2oX8fKxsSy— Cassiel Ato Forson(PhD) (@Cassielforson) August 27, 2022