Baffling Media-Silence About the Bank of Ghana's Digital Cedi And Newly-Minted Gold Coins

In 2021, the Bank of Ghana, made two significant announcements, which will make a huge difference to Ghana's future: The creation of a digital cedi, and the minting, and availability, of gold coins (for sale to the investing-public one presumes). The question is: Why the baffling silence about both new developments, in Ghanaian media-content, since they were announced by the Bank of Ghana?

Yet, if our ruling-elites make it possible for gold coins, and credit-card-sized gold bars embossed with Adinkra symbols, to be purchased legally, from a dedicated trading-floor, in the headquarters building of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), tens of millions of visitors from the world's biggest outbound tourism market, China, for example, will flock to Ghana, annually, to purchase gold coins and credit-card-sized gold bars embossed with Adinkra symbols.

Towards that end, has the time not now come, to ban the export of gold from Ghana? It is a great deal more sensible, as an aspirational African society, for us to position our country, strategically, through a commercial-ecosystem, which enables us to earn more from our gold mining sector's output - by simply legalising the minting, and sale, of gold coins, as well as credit-card-sized gold bars, locally.

And, why not create digital accounts for all Ghanaians, at the Bank of Ghana, since we now have a Central Bank Digital Currency? What matters there, is that we ensure that the digital cedi is underpinned by affordable Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), commonly known as blockchain technology, available now from reputable companies. That will ensure accountability and prevent hackers from stealing from such accounts.

If payments for the needy during the COVID-19 lockdowns, for example, had been through such digital accounts at the Bank of Ghana, not a pesewa would have been siphoned off, into the deep pockets, of the powerful big-thieves-in-high-places, who are robbing Mother Ghana blind, in broad daylight, even as we speak. Ditto taxes at the ports by exporters and importers. The more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media ought to disseminate information about the Bank of Ghana's digital cedi, and the minting of gold coins, more widely. Their silence on both those new developments is baffling. Yoooooo...