![\"Dr.](\"http:\/\/img.ghanamma.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/94d2240x_mg_o63vna8mlh_drbawumia.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n <\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n <\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
An economist and Head of Finance\u00a0Department, Ghana Business school,\u00a0Godfred Bokpin has backed Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s claims that the\u00a0exchange rates and inflation figures are\u00a0not credible.<\/p>\n
He asserted that there was a 23% variation\u00a0in the figures published by the\u00a0Bank of Ghana (BoG).<\/p>\n
‘From January to May, there wasn’t\u00a0so much of a wide variation, but then\u00a0from June to July, the disparity between\u00a0the Bank of Ghana’s official rate and the\u00a0interbank rate jumped. For instance, the\u00a0percentage difference between the two\u00a0rates from July was almost 23%,’ he\u00a0explained.<\/p>\n
Dr. Bawumia, a former Deputy Governor\u00a0of the central bank, has questioned\u00a0the credibility of the exchange rates and\u00a0inflation figures being published by the\u00a0BoG and the Ghana Statistical Service\u00a0(GSS).<\/p>\n
Dr. Bawumia, the 2012 Vice Presidential\u00a0Candidate of the New Patriotic Party\u00a0(NPP), expressed concern about what he\u00a0considers to be a ‘deliberate attempt by\u00a0officials to massage the true state of inflation\u00a0and depreciation of the Ghanaian\u00a0cedi.’<\/p>\n
According to him, while the local currency\u00a0is trading at an average of GH\u00a23.8\u00a0to the dollar among banks, official figures\u00a0had deceptively pegged the\u00a0exchange rate at GH\u00a23.03.<\/p>\n
The BoG, he said ‘would have us\u00a0believe that since June 17 this year, the\u00a0exchange rate of the cedi to the US dollar\u00a0has remained unchanged at some\u00a0GH\u00a23.03 per US dollar and has thus\u00a0‘remained fixed at this rate over the last\u00a0three months.’<\/p>\n
Dr Bawumia said, ‘A simple look at\u00a0the interbank market exchange rates indicates\u00a0that the cedi has not only been\u00a0depreciating daily, but is currently trading\u00a0between GH\u00a23.7 and GH\u00a24.1 per dollar\u00a0with an average of some GH\u00a23.8 per\u00a0US dollar.’<\/p>\n
BoG New Rate\u00a0
However, two days after Dr Bawumia\u00a0issued his statement on August 21, the\u00a0Bank of Ghana (BoG) adjusted its rate to\u00a0GH\u00a23:13, saying the cedi has moved by a\u00a0whole point (10 pesewas) and will now\u00a0be trading on Monday at GH\u00a23.13.<\/p>\n
The Financial Times of London, the\u00a0Reuters the CNN and other financial analysts\u00a0have estimated the cedi’s depreciation\u00a0at over 40% this first half of 2014.<\/p>\n
But the government claims the cedi\u00a0has only fallen 22.9 %.\u00a0Industry players have urged the two\u00a0institutions to respond to the allegations\u00a0to put the minds of Ghanaians at ease.<\/p>\n
However, the two are yet to officially\u00a0issue a response on the matter.<\/p>\n
On Citi Fm’s, The Big Issue on Saturday,\u00a0Mr Bokpin noted that the disparities\u00a0in the figures suggest that ‘one market\u00a0was dead and was not responding to the\u00a0demand and supply dynamics. So either\u00a0the Bank of Ghana did not update its\u00a0own data or perhaps, it was an oversight.’<\/p>\n
He added that at certain times, all we\u00a0need to generate in the needed market is\u00a0trust. If you want to look at the market\u00a0value of trust just look at its absence.’<\/p>\n
Mr. Bokpin urged authorities to be\u00a0transparent in their dealings to allow\u00a0them generate market trust and also\u00a0admonished the Central Bank to provide\u00a0clarification on this disparity.<\/p>\n
The Obuasi West MP, Kwaku\u00a0Kwarteng, also accused the Bank of\u00a0Ghana of fraudulently manipulating the\u00a0forex rate figures.<\/p>\n
The MP, who backed assertions by Dr\u00a0Bawumia on Saturday, said that he suspected\u00a0BoG was up to no good.<\/p>\n
He accused the Central Bank of warping\u00a0the figures to conceal the truth about\u00a0the depreciation of the Cedi.<\/p>\n
By August 13, 2014, the Central Bank\u00a0set the average exchange rate at GH\u00a23.03\u00a0to a dollar while the Statistical Service\u00a0said inflation, as of the end of July, had\u00a0risen to 15.3 percent.<\/p>\n
Raising suspicions about the figures,\u00a0Dr Bawumia wondered why there\u00a0appeared to be such a wide gap between\u00a0the figures quoted by officialdom and the\u00a0reality on the ground.<\/p>\n
‘Where in Ghana today can you buy\u00a0a dollar at close to GH\u00a23.03? The large\u00a0spread between the Bank of Ghana\u00a0exchange rate and the interbank\u00a0exchange rate indicates that the Bank of\u00a0Ghana rate is being administratively set\u00a0and not market driven,’ he said.<\/p>\n
This article has 0<\/b> comment, leave your comment.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t \t<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia An economist and Head of Finance\u00a0Department, Ghana Business school,\u00a0Godfred Bokpin has backed Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s claims that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}