People are hoarding dollars because they think that’s the only way they can save – Dr Atuahene

Banking Consultant, Dr. Richmond Atuahene, has stated that the instability in the economy is one of the reasons that people decide to hoard dollars.

According to him, the cedi’s depreciation encourages the hoarding of dollars.

He explained that it is a rational thing for people to decide to keep dollars because of the uncertainties in the economy.

Dr. Atuahene said “So, any rational human being will ask himself, ‘Do I go for a little dollar, a little euro?’ because that is the only way he thinks he can save. But if the economy is running well and everything is stabilized, I mean, I remember in 2006 I believe the dollar and the cedi after the change or something, people in America were coming down here and asking that ‘o we want the cedi’ because they didn’t want the dollar.

“So, the whole matter as we’re discussing to me, we should sit down as a country and have a national agenda to develop our export consistently,” he was quoted by myjoyonline.com.

The consultant proposed that the country must be able to enforce laws that ensure the value of the local currency.

“It is good to have the laws but we must keep our economy running properly so that the value of the currency will be as it is. In a country where you import more than export, definitely, you’re going to have an impact on your currency. And that is where we should tackle our problem and to be able to resolve this currency depreciation we must export more.

“But unfortunately, it looks like it’s magic, people will tell you that we’re arresting the currency when you have not put in place any strategic export development structure. I mean, you can’t arrest the currency by borrowing to help the cedi, no; it is never done in any economics. Temporarily you can succeed but in the long run, you can’t,” he said.

SSD/NOQ

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