A Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana, Legon, has called on Ghanaians to remain calm and desist from speculating about the Cedi currency depreciation.

Speaking on Newsfile, on Saturday, Dr Priscilla Twumasi Baffour explained that speculation activity about the cedi depreciation or dollar growth will further affect the currency and have adverse effects on importers who rely on the dollar to trade.

She told the host Emefa Apawu that “to be honest, the dollar in recent times has gained a lot of value globally, so you see that all other currencies are also struggling. But our situation has become precarious with the peculiar circumstances that we find ourselves in.”

“We should stay calm and also to a large extent halt the speculative activity on the currency. This is because what speculators are doing is, buying and hoarding and waiting to take advantage of the higher value (dollar) and then change it. So that also deprives importers who are really in need of the currency to bring in imported goods,” she added.

This comes after the cedi was cited by a Bloomberg report as the worst-performing against the dollar worldwide.

The Ghana cedi also lost further grounds Friday morning to trade at ¢14.70 to the dollar, quotations from the forex bureaus indicate.

The free fall of the local currency is expected to pose a difficulty to Ghanaians with a fast depreciation being seen.

Meanwhile, Dr Twumasi Baffour has urged importers and members of Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) whose capital has been greatly affected because of the depreciation to source local alternatives for their products.

“I know that about some months ago GUTA was in talks with the Ministry of Trade looking at options available in terms of import substitution. I share in their sentiment because if you are trading and you consistently losing the value of your capital it is not a comfortable place to be,” she said.

“But the question also is that all the things that a lot of their members are importing, is there the option to source local alternatives? Is there the option for the government to sit down with these groups and see the possibility of them moving into areas where they could be producing locally and supporting local manufacturing firms?” Dr Twumasi Baffour quizzed.