A senior technical economic advisor to the Vice President Dr Samuel Kwadwo Frimpong has partly blamed churches operating in Ghana with headquarters based outside the country for the cedi depreciation.
According to him, they have observed that most of these foreign Churches convert their offertories and tithes into dollars before transferring them into forex accounts.
He said a careful analysis of the Cedi indicates that between Monday and Tuesday the currency depreciates marginally linking it to Churches changing the local currency to Dollars.
According to starfmonline, Dr. Frimpong told Odame Agyare said this to a Freelance Journalist on a yet-to-be premiered show – “On Point showâ€
“Many churches in Ghana do not have their head offices here. So their collections, offerings and tithes are changed into dollars and transferred into forex accounts.
“Recently, we have studied and noticed that on Mondays and Tuesdays the rate at which the Cedi is changed into Dollars rises. As a Christian and economist, I think it is also a contributory factor.â€
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He was, however, optimistic measures rolled out to strengthen the Cedi against the Dollar will yield positive results.
Ghana’s local currency recently hit an all-time low recording a rate of GHS5.86 to a $1.
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on Thursday revealed in Parliament that the government will constitute a bi-partisan committee to probe the recent depreciation of the Cedi and suggest measures to curb it.
He added that despite the depreciation of the cedi, the local currency is performing better as compared to the same time in 2012 and 2015.