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The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has clarified that government is not against the US Dollar usage in international transactions as some analysts, commentators and leading trade agencies have been misinterpreting the government’s policy of using gold reserves to pay for oil products.
According to Dr Bawumia, the government has noticed that the gold for oil policy will help Ghana to save the $3 billion it spends on oil importation by creating a gap to acquire extra worldwide reserves.
“If we implement it as we have envisioned, it will fundamentally change our balance of payment and significantly reduce the persistent deprecation of our currency,” he added
Speaking at the 2022 AGI Awards in Accra, Dr. Bawumia said the directive to use gold for oil is due to the fact that it would deliver the country’s local currency from depreciation and protect its impact.
“To address this fundamental challenge that we all face of depreciation and its impact on fuel and utility prices and food and so on, the government has opted to implement a policy of using our gold to buy oil products,” he stated.
Proceeding, he urged the industry players to stop misinterpreting the government intention.
“This has been misrepresented as Ghana being against the use of the US dollars in International transactions. This is not the case. We are not on any mission against the use of the dollars in international transactions, far from it. In fact, we want to accommodate all US dollars in our reserves. But we have a specific issue to deal with oil imports and the prices of fuel, food and transport and utilities that’s essentially what we are targeting,” Dr. Bawumia explained.
Over some months now, the Ghana cedi has been struggling in the market, taking a downturn and leading to excessive fees on fuel, goods and services.
