On May 2, 2025, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana gave the nation and the markets a message of confidence. He insisted that the stability of the cedi was not being propped up by intervention. “The stability you are seeing now, it’s not because we are intervening, it’s not because we are selling reserves for stability, no. Remember our reserves programme is actually going up by the day. We are building more and more reserves. All that we are doing is strengthening the surge in inflows, a number of foreign exchange market reforms are being implemented. It is the combination of all these factors,” he declared.

To investors and ordinary Ghanaians, the message was simple: the cedi was walking on its own feet, not leaning on the central bank’s crutches.

Fast forward to September 10, 2025, and the story shifted dramatically. The President announced: “The Bank of Ghana had been intervening in the forex market, but they have withdrawn.” In one sentence, the President undermined the narrative that had been carefully crafted just four months earlier. What was hailed as reform-driven strength in May was rebranded as intervention-driven illusion by September.

This contradiction is more than semantics. Currencies thrive on confidence, and confidence is built on consistency. If the central bank claimed to be building reserves while the presidency admitted those reserves were being used to intervene, then one of two things must be true: either the Governor misled the public, or the President revealed what the Governor was hiding. In both cases, credibility suffers, and when credibility falls, the cedi follows.

A cedi cannot have two birth certificates: one signed by reforms and another by interventions. Mixed signals don’t just confuse the public; they invite speculation, erode trust, and weaken the very foundation of stability. In currency markets, contradictions are costly. The cedi doesn’t just need reserves, it needs one honest story.

Author: Prof. Isaac Boadi, Dean, Faculty of Accounting and Finance, UPSA

Research Fellow, APL