Dollarisation of Ghana’s economy not solution to Cedi depreciation – ASEPA

The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has disagreed with suggestions by Dr John Kwabena Kwakye, the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), to adopt the dollar as Ghana’s currency to stabilise the country’s economy.

The Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, argued that Ghana’s major hurdles in stabilising the economy are prolonged recklessness and borrowing and not the adoption of the US Dollar.

Mr. Thompson told the host of Breakfast Daily, David Kwaku Saforo-Sakyi on Citi TV that Ghana’s current economic woes should be blamed on the recklessness of the former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, the governor of the Bank of Ghana and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“We are here not because our currency is not held in dollars, we are here because of the recklessness of Ken Ofori-Atta, the governor of the Central Bank and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The root cause of our problem is recklessness, borrowing and people who just don’t understand simple economic management who implemented faze economic restructuring that has thrown the economy into a cyclic spiral now going back into a debt hole and the solution is not dollarisation.

He added that the decision to restructure Ghana’s domestic debt was a bad idea that placed a strain on the Cedi.

“I have always asked myself, why did the government, after all the recklessness of Ken Ofori-Atta, still decide that if they were going under a debt restructuring programme, Ken Ofori-Atta was the person they were going to allow to oversee that debt restructuring, I was surprised when he decided to restructure our domestic debt.”