Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the worse performance of the Ghana cedi under the New Patriotic Party' administration is better than best performance under the NDC.
Dr Bawumia was addressing Ghanaians on the state of the economy at a Town hall meeting in Accra.
One of the many issues Dr Bawumia had to address is the current state of the Cedi.
The Ghana cedi in recent times kept depreciating at a faster pace thereby affecting the economy.
"The data on the annual rate of depreciation of the cedi in recent years shows that the worse performance so far under the NPP government, the 8.4% depreciation in 2018 is better than best performance under the previous government between 2012 and 2016,"
"So our worse is better than your best and then you say boot for boot, this one is more like boot for 'chalewote' " the Veep added.
Dr Bawumia mainly addresses the depreciating cedi and according to him while the cedi was depreciating the Bank of Ghana could not intervene because the Central Bank was required to increase its net international reserves to the level of December 2018, which means the Bank of Ghana could not sell any foreign exchange on the market.
Â
The Cedi depreciated for the first three months of 2019, the situation made it difficult for businessmen to transact business smoothly.
Explaining the real cause of the cedi depreciation, Dr Bawumia said:
"the most important and the proximate cause of the the recent depreciation is the time inconsistency of an IMF prior action on the reserves target, at the end of January as part of the 7th prior actions to get to the IMF board and completion of the IMF programme the IMF gave Ghana 7 actions to complete before March 2019, one of the conditions that the Bank of Ghana had to meet was to increase its net international reserves to the level of December 2018, to increase the net international reserve however meant that the Bank of Ghana could not sell any foreign exchange in the market, they have to hold their hands to the back and could not intervene on the market during this particular market so demands for foreign currency was not met by supply as it normally happens on a day to day basis, we when the demand is greater than the demand the price will go up and this is exactly what was happening."
The NDC have been on the neck of the NPP with the recent cedi depreciation. The NDC usually refer the NPP and Dr Bawumia to 2016 where prior to the election he made a statement that:" when the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you," these comments have solely been used as a reminder anytime the cedi depreciates.
Read also:
Â
Â