The Ghana Cedi appears to be coming under some pressure again only days into 2015. This has seen the local currency go down marginally..

For instance as at last month, one needed 3 Ghana cedis 1 pesewa  to get a  dollar  from the Forex Bureau, but it is now 3 Ghana cedis 4 pesewas to a dollar.

Head of Research at Group Nduom, Kofi Ampah attributes this to increasing demand for dollars for imports.

“Greatly we look at it from the point of traders looking at the fact that they need to restock. You know that most of these industries at the beginning of the year will also have made projections whether repatriation of capital, which could be one reason. So therefore they would have to change their local currency to dollar.”

Industries may be needing more dollars to also import whatever commodity they work with which could account for the slight depreciation of the cedi, he added.

Mr. Kofi Ampah however advised traders not to panic saying “it is early days yet”.

Meanwhile, a Senior Economist at the University of Ghana Legon, Dr. Eric Osei Assibey says government might have to come up with some new measures to halt any free fall.

“Government has to be very proactive and anticipate to be able to put all these scenarios into consideration and do a better prediction of how the currency is going to be.”