BoG has only $25m of $104m needed for imports but Bawumia has chased 'strategic partner' Abochi into hiding – Isaac Adongo

Bolgatanga Central lawmaker Isaac Adongo has said per the Bank of Ghana’s own notice: NO.BG/FMD/2022/86, dated the 18th day of October 2022, “the market required a whopping amount of $104,750,000 for their imports”.

“Unfortunately”, he noted, the central bank “could only provide $25 million at the auction”.

Therefore, there is a shortfall of nearly $80 million.

He said: “It is, therefore, obvious that Abochi, the strategic partner, will have to step in to provide the bulk of the dollars $80m to make the system work”.

“Yet, Dr Bawumia has set the security to chase this his partner into hiding”, the opposition MP alleged.

“Guess what! Abochi, the strategic partner, is smart”, Mr Adongo noted.

“He [Abochi] is 'hiding fees' and 'running away from security cost' to the existing rate”.

“This is how Dr Bawumia is fixing the exchange rate for you”.

“You create a strategic partner and turn round to chase him into hiding”, he noted.

“You'll pay for it”, he said, adding: “Commonsense is hardly ever common”.

Mr Adongo advised the Vice President thus: “Dr Bawumia, if you want to eliminate Abochi, please keep providing the entire amount required by the market each time”.

In his recent national address on the economic crisis, President Nana Akufo-Addo said an anonymous WhatsApp audio that got circulated widely on social media platforms recently, did a lot of damage to the cedi.

In the Sunday night (30 October 2022) address, the president singled out the audio as an example of how speculators were fuelling the depreciation of the cedi.

"Fellow Ghanaians, as the French would say, l’argent n’aime pas le bruit, to wit, money does not like noise, sika mpɛ dede. Where there is chaos, where there is noise, where there is unrest, you will not find money. If you talk down your money, it will go down. If you allow some unidentifiable person to talk down your money, it will go down," he noted.

He explained: "The recent turbulence on the financial markets was caused by low inflows of foreign exchange, and was made worse in the last two to three weeks, in particular, by the activities of speculators and the Black Market."

An anonymous two-minute audio message on a WhatsApp platform predicting a so-called haircut on Government bonds sent all of us into banks and forex bureaus to dump our cedis, and, before we knew it, the cedi had depreciated further", he pointed out, adding: "All of us can play a part in helping to strengthen the cedi by having confidence in the currency, and avoiding speculation".

The president urged: "Let us keep our cedi as the good store of value it is. To those who make it a habit of publishing falsehoods, which result in panic in the system, I say to them that the relevant state agencies will act against such persons."

"Indeed, some steps have been taken to restore order in the forex markets and we are already beginning to see some calm returning. We will not relent until order is completely restored."

He said the following actions have been taken thus far: Enhanced supervisory action by the Bank of Ghana in the forex bureau markets and the black market to flush out illegal operators, as well as ensuring that those permitted to operate legally abide by the market rules. Already some forex bureaus have had their licences revoked, and this exercise will continue until complete order is restored in the sector;

Fresh inflows of dollars are providing liquidity to the foreign exchange market, and addressing the pipeline demand;

The Bank of Ghana has given its full commitment to the commercial banks to provide liquidity to ensure the wheels of the economy continue to run in a stabilized manner, till the IMF Programme kicks in and the financing assurances expected from other partners also come in;

The government is working with the Bank of Ghana and the oil producing and mining companies to introduce a new legal and regulatory framework to ensure that all foreign exchange earned from operations in Ghana are, initially, paid to banks domiciled in Ghana to help boost the domestic foreign exchange market; and the Bank of Ghana will enhance its gold purchase programme. I am confident that these immediate measures designed to change the structure of our balance of payment flows, sanitise the foreign exchange market to ensure that the banks and forex bureaus operate along international best practices, together with strengthened supervision, will go a long way to sanitize our foreign exchange market, and make it more resilient against external vulnerabilities going forward.

Source: ClassFMonline.com