‘Dissolve Them’! Pianim Delivers Death Blow to Cedi Hunters Committee

Renowned economist and former advisor to past governments, Kwame Pianim has ridiculed the Foreign Exchange Development Committee (FX Committee) as a mere tea-drinking party.

“Let’s scrap them…dissolve it, we don’t need it! What is it for? They are going to meet, we spend some money we don’t have making tea for them? What are they going to do?” Mr. Pianim told Accra-based Citi News today.

Mr. Pianim who a former presidential aspirant who had served on several both locally and internationally, described the 40-member committee as a public relations stunt, “This committee if it is a public relations stunt that is fine. If it is eye-service, that is fine. But I cannot see them contributing to anything,” he charged.

The FX Committee comprises an astonishing 40 individuals including well-known faces like Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI, Yoofi Grant of GIPC, representatives from the Finance Ministry, Agric Ministry, Bank of Ghana, Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), among others.
For. Mr. Pianim, after three full years of the Akufo Addo administration, this is the worst time for the government to be experimenting on how to save its face after failing to fulfil its widely publicised promises of stopping the Ghanaian cedi from depreciating.

The FX Committee was last week inaugurated and would be chaired by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in what has been described as an obvious side-stepping of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia-who was marketed as the main economic wizkid of the Akufo Addo administration.

Critics have concluded that the desperate situation necessitating the committee’s formation has exposed the failure of the administration.
While in opposition, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took the then governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the cleaners for causing the devaluation of the Ghanaian cedis due to poor economic management. Dr. Bawumia made the popular statement that “If the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you”.
Immediately after the Akufo Addo administration assumed power in 2017, both the President and his Vice President mounted several podiums to promise the country that the administration was certainly going to “arrest” the cedis, saying they will do that through strict economic management unlike what the NDC did.
However, after three full years of struggling to stabilise the local currency, Dr. Bawumia who heads the highly-touted Economic Management Team (EMT) of the government, appears to have been kicked out as he is not even featured in the FX Committee.
Last year, when he was confronted with the possibility that his administration may have failed in its cedi-arresting quest, Vice President Bawumia propounded a curious excuse that has left critics scratching their heads.
While at the Economic Management Team’s town hall meeting at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Accra, early 2019, Dr. Bawumia explained “… is warped logic to jump from that to a conclusion that if there is depreciation in your currency then the fundamentals must be weak. It is a very warped logic. If the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you but if the exchange rate moves, you cannot jump to that conclusion that the fundamentals are weak. That defies logic. There could be other external factors causing the exchange rate depreciation.”
However, in the same statement, he insisted that a weak cedi is a sign of weak fundamentals “You will recall that I stated in 2014 that if the fundamentals are weak the exchange rate will expose you. That was true then and it is true now. It is 100% correct. So if the fundamentals are weak the exchange rate will expose.” Critics have expressed difficulty reconciling Dr. Bawumia’s excuse.