President Nana Akuffo Addo finally had an epiphany, a sudden realization that all is not well with the country’s currency, the cedi and thus the overall economy.
This was the President on Tuesday confessing his pain and agony over the decline of Ghana’s currency. “I am extremely upset and anxious about the cedi but I want to assure you that all efforts are being made to arrest the decline and restore the cedi to stability.”
I don’t know who might have prevailed on the first gentleman to grudgingly accept the stark reality of a cedi that has been in a free fall for the last three years.
Ghanaians aren’t fools; they know that their President knew all along that the cedi was profoundly weak and was in no position to compete globally against major currencies and therefore couldn’t prop up our considerably weakened national economy.
In spite of this overwhelming evidence, the President until Tuesday remained eerily silent about the currency except to mouth the laughable and lame phrase: the fundamentals of the economy are sound.
Why has it taken the President this long to promulgate sound financial and economy policies that would have done a great deal to stabilize the cedi? Political expediency, I presume?
The ramifications of the cedi’s continuous slide are devastating; Ghanaians are paying more for basic imported consumer items and foreign and local businesses are fretting and indeed complaining loudly to anyone who will listen about the added cost to the stuff they import into the country. Overall, it is an ugly picture, one of neglect from above and untold hardships at the bottom.
Mr. Addo’s rather bizarre and belated admission about the struggling cedi is deeply suspicious. His promise to restore the currency to a semblance of stability is both opportunistic and craven.
The 2020 elections are on the horizon; they are drawing closer and Mr. Addo feels time is not on his side. As a direct consequence, he thinks doing something profound at this stage to strengthen the cedi will be a gesture to win over disaffected Ghanaians who are rapidly having second thoughts about him. They have suffered enough.
The irony of President Addo’s sudden new found interest in the cedi isn’t lost on Ghanaians. While in opposition, the President and his vice, constantly and without fail, relentlessly excoriated former president John Mahama over the cedi which was then doing quite well compared to its current mighty struggle to remain stable and relevant.
Dr. Bawumia famously said: “The cedi had been arrested and the keys given to the Inspector General of Police.” He got a big laugh out of that statement.
Well, their words are coming back to bite them in the back, and Ghanaians are watching the drama with considerable alarm and a fundamental question; when are these guys going to do something about their financial and economic plight?
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