President of the Ghana Union of Traders’ Association (GUTA), Dr. Joseph Obeng, has called on the general public to be measured in their expectations concerning the prices of goods on the market.

According to him, while the depreciation of the cedi had drastically affected the price of goods, the cedi’s appreciation now would not immediately reflect in the prices of goods.

He explained that just as traders had lost huge chunks of their capital during the depreciation, the sudden appreciation of the cedi has also led to traders losing large portions of their capital due to the reason that they had stored their capital in dollars during the depreciation.

He noted that the sudden appreciation of the cedi has eroded the value of their dollar-stored capital thus to regain some of that capital back, traders would be selling their goods at a reasonable price to customers.

“That’s why I’m still emphasizing that our expectations should be measured. That we should not think that it will go proportionately like the way the currency has. In that case, the consuming public is not being fair to us. We are showing good faith and we are telling our members to strike a reasonable pricing because about 70% of us have lost our capital.

“Even though the dollar is going down, it means that where are you going to get your money because you have already changed it and now the cedi has appreciated against the dollar that you stored your value in even though you’ve used it to purchase the goods by the time the goods come you’ve lost in disguise,” he said.

He has urged importers to take opportunity of the appreciating cedi and buy the dollar now that it is cheaper.

“And so that’s why we’re saying that whoever is having goods now should strike the necessary averages and be able to sell at this time so that they can buy the dollar as it is cheaper now. They can get even more dollars and help themselves,” he said.