Alliance for Revolutionary Change will tackle cedi depreciation head-on – Abu Sakara

The Founder of the National Interest Movement (NIM), Dr. Abu Sakara Foster, has stated that the Alliance for Revolutionary Change's first step in revamping Ghana's economy will be to tackle the depreciation of the Ghanaian cedi.

Speaking on Morning Starr with Lantam Papanko on Tuesday, Dr. Sakara explained that when Ghanaians vote for the Alliance, they will implement the necessary measures to halt the cedi's depreciation.

According to him, the nation possesses commodities such as cocoa that can be utilized to arrest the rapid depreciation of Ghana's currency.

"We have to stabilize the exchange rate because, as it stands, it is difficult for any enterprise to be profitable, make money, and employ people. They are all downsizing; everywhere is cutting costs, and if you are in an economy that keeps cutting costs, the economy shrinks.

"Because you lose competition in the marketplace, you lose jobs, so one of the first things we have to do is stabilize the cedi. How do you stabilize the cedi? The exchange rate is determined by how many cedis are chasing the dollar," Dr. Sakara indicated.

He continued, "So we ask, what are the big-ticket items we can address to reduce the number of cedis chasing dollars so that our cedi will have more strength? First of all, we grow cocoa here, but we go and bring dollars to buy it. We are not going to allow that; we will stop that immediately. That's a very big chunk of money syndication. So we are going to allow people to raise money here, buy the cocoa, and bring it for export.

"When we do that, we get the dollars, so it won't be cedis chasing dollars; it will be dollars chasing cocoa and cedis."