A former Deputy Finance Minister, Mona Quartey, has attributed the continuous free fall of the cedi to the uncertainty of the future of Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
According to Mona Quartey, even though several factors have contributed to the depreciation of the cedi, the continuous stay in office of the Finance Minister, whose policies have failed domestically, has eroded the confidence of investors in the Ghanaian economy.
“There is no doubt that the cedi depreciation is based on uncertainty, and part of the uncertainty is the future of us maintaining the Finance Minister. The world and the markets are looking and wondering why we would continue to keep a Finance team that has implemented economic policies that have failed domestically. So that uncertainty is feeding into the depreciation rate,” Mrs Quartey said on Eyewitness News on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
The cedi has lost over 50% of its value since January 2022.
The former Deputy Finance Minister also noted that the current inflation figure is a clear indication that Ghana is back in HIPC times.
“[The current inflation rate] is the highest since July 2001 during HIPC times. So there is no doubt that we are back in HIPC times. There is no doubt that we are in dire times, and we are all feeling it in our pockets,” Mrs. Quartey told host Umaru Sanda Amadu.
Ghana’s inflation rate hit an all-time high of 40.4 per cent for the month of October 2022.
This was captured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
Per the data, food and non-food inflation also rose to hit 43.7 percent and 37.8 percent respectively.
