Kumasi Butchers Complain Over Cedi Depreciation

Butchers at the Kumasi Abattoir in the Ashanti region has blamed the government for low patronage of their products for its failure in stabilizing the Ghanaian cedi against the French CFA, the currency use to transact cattle business in the neighboring Burkina Faso, where most of the cattle are bought.

They said the depreciation of the cedi against the CFA has increased the prices of the cattle, which makes them also to increase the price of the meat, affecting low sales as their customers have resorted to other options which are relatively cheap.

Speaking in interview with Otec News’ Mabel Fosu, the President of Freedom Butchers Association at the Kumasi Abattoir, Farouk Naizul, said “we were buying cattle for GHC25, 000 but now we buy it for GHC30, 000 because of the cedi rate to the CFA. When you buy at such price, definitely we will also sell our products at high cost not to incur loss and that drives our customers away.”

“The government promised to stabilize our currency against the foreign ones but for the past two years the CFA has been appreciating against our cedi, making the cedi useless in the international market. We plead with the government as a matter of urgency to do something about the cedi depreciation to save our business,” he added.

“Now most of our customers have resorted to other meat, we record low sales everyday and that has led to some of our members’ businesses folding up against the backdrop of selling at losses.” Mr. Naizul lamented.