President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the exercise to close down forex buraux that are not complying with the regulations will continue.
This forms part of the measures being introduced by the government to tackle the economic challenges especially the Cedi’s poor performance against the Dollar.
Mr Akufo-Addo said in his address to the nation on Sunday October 30 that “The following actions have been taken thus far: 1) enhanced supervisory action by the Bank of Ghana in the forex bureau markets and the black market to flush out illegal operators, as well as ensuring that those permitted to operate legally abide by the market rules.”
“Already some forex bureaus have had their licenses revoked, and this exercise will continue until complete order is restored in the sector,” he said.
The other measures are “Fresh inflows of dollars are providing liquidity to the foreign exchange market, and addressing the pipeline demand;
“The Bank of Ghana has given its full commitment to the commercial banks to provide liquidity to ensure the wheels of the economy continue to run in a stabilized manner, till the IMF Programme kicks in and the financing assurances expected from other partners also come in;
“Government is working with the Bank of Ghana and the oil producing and mining companies to introduce a new legal and regulatory framework to ensure that all foreign exchange earned from operations in Ghana are, initially, paid to banks domiciled in Ghana
“The Bank of Ghana will enhance its gold purchase programme.”
In accordance with the provisions of Sections 11 (1) and 12 (f) of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006 (723), the Bank of Ghana has revoked the licence of Trade House and Airport City Forex Bureaux Limited effective October 27, 2022.
This was based on the Non-compliance with rules governing the operations of foreign exchange bureaux including directive on customer identification and issuance of electronic receipt (Bank of Ghana Notice Number: BG/GOV/SEC/2018/16), (i)The Bank of Ghana reserves the right to revoke the licence of any forex bureau if: in the Bank’s opinion, the conduct of any forex bureau is detrimental to the success of the Forex Bureau Scheme;
According to the Head of Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department at the Bank of Ghana, Yaw Sapong, the exercise targeted at ensuring sanity in the forex market is expected to continue across the capital city, Accra in the Greater Accra region.
The two forex bureaus are under the same ownership and were detected by a mystery shopping exercise by the central bank.
The Head of Other Financial Institutions Supervision department of the Central Bank noted that they were not issuing electronic receipts and not requesting valid proof of identity.
Mr. Sarpong said the “two bureaus on several occasions have been found not to be complying.”
“The way they set their prices are detrimental and we think that the licenses of the two bureaus have to be revoked,” he added.
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana