Re-denomination to cost over ¢411 billion?

According to the newspaper, Daily Dispatch, the re-denomination of the national currency being embarked upon by the Bank of Ghana will cost the nation over 400 billion cedis.

The paper arrived at the 'conservative' figure after a collaborative costing exercise with some senior BoG officials.

Parliament has already requested for the total cost of the exercise and is awaiting a response from the Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Paul Acquah.

The estimated cost of printing the first tranche of new currencies, according to the paper in a report filed by Ben Ephson and Kwamina Kum, is US$39,760,000, about 381,700,000,000 cedis billion.

Other expenses involving the re-denomination exercise are estimated at US$3,125,000, about 30 billion cedis. The total estimated costs are $42,885,000 or 411,700,000,000.

The paper explained that it arrived at these conservative estimated costs after various considerations.

“A July 26, 2002 press release by the BoG stated that the total cost of printing of new notes, including additional quantities of 1,000 cedis, 2,000 cedis and 5,000 cedis denominations amounted to 110 billion cedis ($13,253,000) at that time.

“Our sources at the BoG explained that the 110 billion cedis cost in 2002 was for additional quantities of three different currencies that had been designed already. The estimated costs (conservative) for the first tranche of five different currencies include the new design and extra security features. The 30 billion cedis ($3.125 million) includes the cost of hiring the South African company assisting in the exercise, advertising and extra security measures in the course of sending the new currencies around.”

The paper said its BoG sources also revealed that the introduction of coins would greatly reduce the rapid rate at which the Bank was printing new notes, especially in the lower denominations, to replace mutilated ones.

It said in 2002, a senior Bank of Ghana official told the Ghana News Agency that the bank spent 3 billion cedis a month to replace mutilated bank notes, and also hinted that between January and August, 2002, the BoG destroyed mutilated notes of various denominations, the equivalent of 244.3 billion cedis, an average of 30.5 billion cedis of bad currency each month.