Dr Cassiel Ato Forson is the Minister of Finance
Claim:
The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, in his 2025 Mid-Year Budget presentation in Parliament on Thursday, July 24, 2025, claimed that the country’s currency, the Ghana cedi, traded at GH¢17 to a dollar in the recent past.
Dr Ato Forson, while touting the management of the cedi by the John Dramani Mahama administration, asserted that the prudent measures put in place by the government have led to the country’s currency appreciating to trade at GH¢10 to a dollar.
“Mr Speaker, the cedi’s performance in the first half of this year has been impressive! The Ghana Cedi experienced significant appreciation against all major trading currencies in the first six months of 2025. I am happy to inform the House that our precious cedi, which once upon a time was trading at about GH¢17.0 to the US Dollar, was trading at about GH¢10.4 as at yesterday, 23rd July, 2025. Similarly, the cedi, which was once trading at GH¢21.0 to the Great British Pound, was trading at about GH¢14.1 as at yesterday, 23rd July, 2025,” he said.
Analysis:
The GH¢14-to-the-$1 rate the minister made reference to was the interbank exchange rate from the Bank of Ghana for Wednesday, July 23, 2025.
This presupposes that the GH¢17-to-dollar rate he mentioned was also an interbank rate from the central bank.
GhanaWeb’s check from the Bank of Ghana data showed that the Ghana cedi has never traded at GH¢17 to the dollar at the interbank market.
The records show that the highest-ever interbank rate, amid the cedi depreciation under the erstwhile Nana Addo Akufo-Addo government, was around GH¢16.4 to the US dollar in November 2024.
At the forex bureaus, however, the Ghana cedi traded around GH¢18 at some point during the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.
Also, the minister’s use of the preposition “about” could suggest that he was only approximating the exchange rate.
However, the highest interbank cedi-to-dollar rate was recorded on November 2, 2024, when the cedi traded at GH¢16.4 to $1.
Mathematically, approximating GH¢16.4 to a round figure would result in GH¢16, not GH¢17.
Verdict:
The finance minister’s claim that the cedi traded at GH¢17 to the dollar is false if he was making reference to the interbank foreign exchange rates.
However, the minister’s claim would be true if the GH¢17-to-dollar rate he mentioned was the rate for forex bureaus.
Conclusion:
Dr Ato Forson’s comparison of the GH¢10.4-to-dollar rate, which was the rate for July 23 as indicated earlier, to the GH¢17-to-dollar rate makes it seem he was comparing interbank rates.
The minister did not mention whether he was comparing interbank or forex bureau rates, which has opened his claim to various interpretations.
AME
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