Business News of Monday, 14 November 2022

Source: Richard Obeng Bediako, Contributor

Cedi fall: Government must stop ‘Black Market’ operators - Nana Yaa Jantuah

General Secretary of the CPP, Ms Nana Yaa Jantuah General Secretary of the CPP, Ms Nana Yaa Jantuah

The General Secretary of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Nana Yaa Jantuah, has expressed worry about the illegal activities of the black currency market which has significantly contributed to the depreciation of the cedi against major trading currencies.

According to her, the situation where the parallel market was driving the supply and rate of foreign exchange transactions was unacceptable, and no effort must be spared to rein in that situation to curb the currency crisis around the cedi.

Nana Yaa Jantuah was emphatic that the black market must be eliminated from the financial space to arrest the pace at which the cedi loses its value against major foreign currencies.

"They [BoG] should use 'Black Market' operators as a scapegoat, once they are arrested, to trace the link that these operators are having with the banks," Nana Yaa Jantuah exclusively told Kwaku Owusu Adjei (Patoo) on Adwenekasa on Accra-based Original FM 91.9.

"As you hear public commentators and commentators of the Bank of Ghana itself say, it is still the black market that is driving both the supply as well as the rate of our foreign exchange transactions."

"That, for me is completely unacceptable, and we have to find a way to work together to drive the black market out of business,"

She urged the Central Bank to engage the services of the BNI to trace the supply of some of the foreign currencies that get to the Black Market to stop the supply from the source.