One of the 40 people nominated by the Finance Ministry to brainstorm on the causes of the continued depreciation of the local currency, the cedi, has publicly turned down the invitation.
At a press conference in Ho on Saturday, January 18, 2020, Benjamin Kpodo, MP for Ho Central, dismissed the idea of setting up the committee as a joke.
“it is good government acknowledged that the cedi is no longer under control and the need to find means to arrest it but forming a committee to arrest it’s free fall is ridiculous,” Hon. Kpodo said.
Addressing the press conference held by the opposition NDC, the Ho Central MP said, rather than go on the wild goose chase, he will apply his energies towards rescuing Ghana from the NPP’s misrule of the country.
“it is not my responsibility in this government to go on a cedi-rescuing mission, but my responsibility to rescue the entire country from the misrule.”
A member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Hon. Kpodo is the only NDC man to have been nominated to serve on the committee that many are calling a waste of time.
According to him, even his nomination was done unprofessionally. “I was not consulted, not even the courtesy of a phone call asking me if I would like to serve on that Committee was made and we (NDC), invited them to Akosombo for us to get together to see how we could move the economy of Ghana forward, but they refused and told us that they have the men, they have the women and whatever to manage the economy well.”
The Finance, on Friday, formed a Committee made up of eminent individuals with knowledge in economics, finance, imports and exports, trade and investment to investigate the cause of the free fall of the cedi against major trading currencies especially the US dollar.
The Committee known as the “FX Development Committee” has Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, as its Chairman has a task of investigating the structural causes for the depreciation of the cedi and proposing measures to stabilise the currency.
At the moment the local currency trades at GH¢5.64 to $1 from about GH¢4.27 to $1 by the end of 2016.
Funnily, most Ghanaians received the news of the Committee with derision as the cause of the cedi’s continued depreciation is already well known. Ghana’s lack of a manufacturing base, which has made it inescapable to depend on foreign imports has long been said to be the bane of the cedi.