Strategist and Financial Consultant, Dr. Daniel Seddoh says the cedi would always be a challenge as long as Ghana continues to run its economy the way it is currently being done by governments.

He stated that governments borrowing to prop up the cedi, instead of engaging and finding lasting solutions to the real issues that affect the nation’s economy would mean that the cedi would continue to be a challenge for businesses.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, the Financial Consultant explained that the only way the country can save itself from this financial quagmire was to be “productive and efficient at production to export.”

He said, “Now we must know that we’re competing with the rest of the world, so if we produce and we’re very expensive, we’re not competitive. So we must find a way of being efficient.

“And it’s the chicken and egg situation, government must give something and reduce the taxes, let people produce efficiently, export. Then you get the foreign currency. But if we don’t do that and we think people will bring money, when it’s time to take that money out then we‘re under pressure, that cycle that we’ve been running and that’s what we’re seeing.”

According to Dr. Seddoh, borrowing to prop up the economy is not sustainable especially now as the countries and institutions that government borrows from are reeling under the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

“And then we do a lot of imports, unnecessary imports. Then what is letting us encourage those imports is because we are generating tax revenues from the ports.  So we’ll have to tell ourselves we must give something to get what we’re looking for,” he added.

He further advised that the government finds a way to strike a balance between the country’s imports and exports.

“Let’s say a lot of the people who consume foreign exchange are those who import. Can we get those groupings to also get themselves in exporting so that as they are consuming they’re generating? For me, if we can get that balance, it will reduce the pressure,” he said.