President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed concern over the black market operations in the Ghanaian currency.
He said that the activities of these illegal operators defeat the purpose of establishing a forex Bureau.
Mr Akufo-Addo said this during a meeting with the management of the Ghana Forex Bureau Association at the Jubilee House in Accra on Wednesday 26 October.
He said “The state of our currency, determinant in our foreign exchange market is some a matter of notoriety now in Ghana.
“It is matter of very grave concern. We have been having a lot of discussions with the governor, the regulator, and I have also asked you to come and give us a flavour of what that he has been telling you and what we conceive out to be the problems. One thing that I thing it is very important for us to address, the initial import, my understanding, for the creation of the Forex bureaux was at the time when our economy was opening up and liberalizing, trying to find a mechanism for putting an end to black market operations on our currency, that was the initial import so we had these Forex bureaux regulated by the Bank of Ghana but which will make access to foreign exchange in the regulated, controlled manner easier.
“Unfortunately, somehow these initial motivation for the creation of the forex bureaux have still not materialized, the black market and you hear public commentators and the BoG itself and others saying there is still the black market that is basically driving both the supply as well as the rate of our foreign exchange transactions.