Cedi depreciation: Arresting black market forex dealers unsustainable

Financial journalist Toma Imihere believe simply arresting persons dealing in foreign exchange unlawfully to curb the depreciation of the cedi is unsustainable.

“You can’t even keep this thing up. You have black markets all around the country,” Mr. Imihere said.

“The police are understaffed and under-resourced. They have their murder cases facing them, their kidnapping cases facing them, so they tend to prioritise.”

Mr. Imihere instead urged the government to look for a more permanent solution to the forex problems Ghana is facing.

He suggested that the Bank of Ghana liberalised the formal market, which is represented by forex bureaus.”

He expects that this will boost confidence in the formal forex market.

“So there will be less incentives for people to go and store up dollars in the hope of making a profit or at least storing value.”

“So what the Bank of Ghana needs to do is ease the restrictions on the formal market, especially at the retail end. All you do is you take out criminal money… but apart from that, let everything go without question,” Mr. Imihere explained.

He was commenting on a special operation conducted by the Bank of Ghana and police on foreign exchange parallel market operators, otherwise known as black market operators.

The perpetrators who were identified at hot spots within the Central Business District of Accra, specifically Rawlings Park, Makola, and Tudu are expected to face prosecution.