Cedi woes: Where are the ‘Alhajis’ getting the Dollars from? – Awingobit asks; tells BoG to up its game

The Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG), Samson Asaki Awingobit has questioned the capacity of the ‘Alhajis’ to have millions of dollars to sell to businesses.

He wondered where the Aljajis get the thousands of millions of dollars from at a time when the laws prohibit an individual from withdrawing more than US$10,000.

“…where did Alhaji get those hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars that business people go there and get…so who regulates them? Is the Bank of Ghana,” he said on TV3’s new Day show on Tuesday, June 4.

He further asked the Bank of Ghana to scale its work in stabilizing the Cedi or else the Governor of the BoG Dr Ernest Addison should be sacked.

“My beef this morning with the Bank of Ghana is that I am calling for his head. He should be dismissed.

“The President had kept long from dismissing the governor of Bank of Ghana…because not putting much forex to the inter-bank and even if you put forex into the inter-banks, you have failed in supervisory,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has said that it remains fully committed to providing stability in the exchange rate for the cedi.

The Bank, according to Governor Addison, has enough foreign exchange reserves to support the market and economic agents should stop engaging in speculative purchases as they will suffer economic losses when the correction occurs.

Addressing the 118th Monetary Policy Committee press conference on Monday May 27, the Bank of Ghana said it is taking measures to improve market conduct and instill sanity in the market for foreign exchange.

To this end, the Bank has worked with the Ghana Association of Banks to streamline documentation requirements for foreign payments to minimise the incentives to resort to the informal markets.

To deal with the high demand pressures on the foreign exchange market, the Bank has taken steps in the past few weeks to directly absorb foreign exchange needs of some corporate institutions, and this has led to a reduced pipeline demand for foreign exchange from the commercial banks.

The Bank said it is fully aware of the operations of illegal operators in the foreign exchange market and is working with the Financial Intelligence Centre to sanitise the foreign exchange market. Foreign exchange bureaux monitoring will be stepped up to ensure compliance with their regulatory framework.

In line with this, all foreign exchange bureaus advertising rates outside their premises and on social media platforms must immediately desist from the practice.