Accra, June 14, GNA - The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Bank of Ghana (BOG) on Thursday urged religious leaders to educate their congregations about the re-denomination exercise, which takes off next month.
Dr. Paul Acquah, Governor of the BOG noted that the feedback from the public indicated that there was need for more education and said that religious leaders had an important role to play.
He made the remark during an interactive meeting between the BOG, the Ministry, and leaders of faith-based organisations in the country, including representative from the Ghana Pentecostal Council, Office of the National Imam, Ahamadiya Mission, National Catholic Secretariat, National Council of Charismatic and Christian Churches and the Islamic Education Unit.
The meeting was intended to educate the leaders of the faith-based organisations to also play an effective role in educating their members on the re-denomination exercise.
Dr. Acquah noted that the exercise would save time in terms of counting the cedi notes and thereby reducing time spent at the bank and the stress and risk of carrying heavy bundles of the existing cedi notes.
"Cheques will now be easier to write because instead writing cheques with so many zeros, which usually got people confused, we would now write our cheques with lesser zeros," he said. Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance noted that religious leaders like all other opinion leaders occupied a very important place that gave them leverage for social mobilization to make the exercise work.
Mr. Baah-Wiredu noted that in terms of cost "for an amount like 500,000 cedis, which is currently made of a hundred 5,000 cedi-notes, we would have saved money on printing the extra 99 notes when that becomes one GH50 cedis."
Participants from the various faith-based organisations raised issues of more education in local dialects and in the rural areas, re-calibration of counting machines and ATM dispensers, provision of stickers for frontline persons like traders and commercial drivers, among other groups.
