Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, the Minister of Finance, has chastised Isaac Adongo, the Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, for reportedly pressuring individuals to buy dollars for their business ventures.
Dr. Amin Adam asserted that Mr. Adongo was trying to weaken the Ghanaian Cedi and make it depreciate even more.
During a press conference on Monday, July 1, Dr. Amin Adam, who is also the Member of Parliament for Karaga, deemed the acts of his friend and colleague to be improper.
He said that Mr. Adongo purposefully made his remarks to stir up opposition to the recent increase in the value of the local currency.
Dr. Amin Adam informed the public and business community that the Cedi has gradually improved in comparison to the same period last year, notwithstanding these comments.
He emphasized that the completion of the debt restructuring program and the impending receipt of the fourth tranche of the IMF loan position the Cedi for substantial expansion.
Dr. Amin Adam credited President Akufo-Addo’s model leadership and the Ghanaian people’s backing of public policies for the Cedi’s successful performance.
“We have said over and over that the problem with the Cedi can also be largely attributed to speculation, and therefore while we’ve been making efforts to influence market sentiments positively, we also know that some other people are inciting speculation. We have had intelligence that people have been deliberately inciting speculation but we never got it too real as we saw only two or three days ago.”
“When my good friend and brother Isaac Adongo went out there urging people to buy dollars to do their business and this was after I indicated at a town hall meeting in the UK that with all the policies we are implementing and with the flows that we are expecting from external sources and with the completion of the debt restructuring with our bilateral official creditors and Eurobond holders, we saw the Cedi becoming stronger and stronger. My brother went out there to say people should ignore Amin Adam and go out there and buy dollars,” he said.
The Finance Minister also stated that Ghana’s economy is showing strong signs of recovery.
He underscored the favorable economic data for 2024’s first quarter and offered a hopeful forecast for the rest of the year.
Dr. Amin Adam stated that while the government carries out the program funded by the IMF, the macroeconomic climate as a whole continues to be stable.
“Growth, as we’ve heard from the previous two distinguished speakers, is proving to be more resilient and robust than initially programmed, and the economy continues to show strong signs of recovery, particularly in the first quarter of 2024,” stated Dr Adam.
“The results were remarkable. Overall, real GDP growth for quarter one of 2024 was 4.7%, the highest since quarter one of 2022. This growth performance is better than the 3.1% growth recorded in the same period in 2023,” he added.
