Gov’t’ Cedi Depreciation Committee A Failure-Franklin Cudjoe

The so-called Foreign ExchangeDevelopment Committee, which was put together by the Akufo-Addo government to “arrest” the unabated depreciation of the local currency failed to achieve its purpose, says Franklin Cudjoe, President of the think-tank, IMANI Africa.

Cudjoe had been appointed by the government to serve on the Committee.

Mr. Cudjoe, admitted the waste of time and money in a Facebook response to a follower on his timeline who, apparently befuddled by the continued massive depreciation of the cedi against major trading currencies, had buttonholed him on Facebook for answers

Patrick Zonu Junior, the questioner had queried: “You have swerved many comments on this but sir can you tell us what was the fx committee which you were part of and the end result of their work or finding?”

To this, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe had shockingly answered indicating he was not even sure whether the committee was still in existence or not. “It was dissolved I think,” the IMANI President had asked.

Then another follower, Kwame Boateng, had asked, “Franklin Cudjoe but did the committee achieve its target?”

To this, Mr. Cudjoe answered in a curt, matter-of-fact monosyllable, “No.”

Obviously, now that a dollar is selling for Ghc6, 70p, the committee which was set up in 2020 when the cedi was selling at about Ghc5 to a dollar had obviously failed. But that failure reflects a larger failure by the Akufo-Addo government which had inherited a cedi selling at less than Ghc3 to a dollar in 2017.

It would be recalled that the so-called FX Development Committee was formed by Government through the Finance Ministry to devise policy measures and interventions to prevent the recurring depreciation of the cedi from assuming the impact of the central bank.

The committee was the fulfillment of a promise that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, had made in 2019 to the effect that government would establish a bipartisan committee to investigate the structural causes of the cedi depreciation and propose adequate measures.

Now that the Committee has failed, accountability demands that the money spent on the committee be accounted for with Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, clearly liable for prosecution for causing financial loss to the state for forming a committee that was bound to fail.