Bank of Ghana intensifies education on new currency

The Bank of Ghana (BoG), as part of its mission to educate the public on the re-denomination of the cedi, has organized a forum for staff of the Audit Service, to among other things, give them a general overview of the exercise.

The forum also created a platform for the Bank of Ghana officials to explain to the staff, the accounting implications involved in the re-denomination.

Enumerating some of the reasons behind the denomination, Dr. Ernest Anderson, Director of Research of BoG said, “The re-denomination of the cedi would reduce the risk that one has to go through while transferring a large sum of money from one location to the other.”

He added the exercise “would also modernize payment systems, thereby eliminating a lot of zeros, and make calculations simpler.”

The BoG official stated that for a country to successfully undertake such an exercise, it should have a stable economy, and Ghana had proven so far to have achieved that.

“Inflation is down, exchange rate compared to last 4 years, is better, and all these and more indicates how stable the economy is,” he added.

Mr. Anderson gave examples of some countries that had successfully undergone re-denomination of their currency”.

He however advised Ghanaians to handle the new currency with care, when it gets into circulation in July this year.

On May 3, 2007, Dr. Paul Acquah, Governor of BoG, launched the specimen of the new currency, and said it “will allow the domestic currency (the cedi) to assume its role as the means of exchange and store of value for all, both within and outside the banking system in a stable low inflation environment”.

The new Ghana Cedi notes are in Gh¢1, Gh¢5, Gh¢10, Gh¢20, and Gh¢50 denominations, while the coins are in the denominations of 1Ghana Cedi, 50 Ghana Pesewas, 20 Ghana Pesewas, 10 Ghana Pesewas, 5 Ghana Pesewas and 1 Ghana Pesewa.