Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia
Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has praised the government’s Economic Management Team for the prudent handling of the country’s exchange rate.
According to him, the management of the cedi against other currencies has been one of the best by any government in its first term since 1992.
Dr Bawumia, who was addressing a regional seminar of the Tertiary Students Confederacy of the NPP (TESCON) at the University of Cape Coast, noted that the stability of the cedi, this year, had been the best, compared to the same period after any election year, under the 4th Republic. This is notwithstanding of the adverse effects of Covid-19.
He praised the Bank of Ghana for the yeoman’s role it had played and continues to play to keep the cedi in check.
“I doff my hat to the central bank for the work that they are doing in the management of the exchange rate. Cumulatively, from the beginning of the year to date, the exchange rate has depreciated by 0.6% against the US dollar, but it has appreciated by 3.6% against the Euro,” he said.
International reserves
Dr Bawumia added that the country’s international reserves position had increased to the equivalence of 5-months of import cover amid the covid-19. This, he said, represents one of the highest international reserves positions on record in the history of Ghana.
“This compares well with the stocks position of about 4.3 months of import cover last year,” he noted.
The Vice-President further stated that the country is experiencing a restoration of economic growth that was lost during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
He intimated that the country is currently witnessing one of the lowest interest rates on record in about two decades, adding that inflation, which at the heart of the pandemic was around 11.8 per cent, dropped to 7.1 per cent in May, 2021 before inching up to 7.8 per cent as at June, 2021.
Job creation
In a related development, the Vice-President has disclosed that despite government’s creation of thousands of jobs through various initiatives in the past four years, creating more opportunities for the youth remains a top priority of the Akufo-Addo government.
Speaking at the launch of University of Ghana Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme (UGIEP), he said majority of Ghana’s population is made up of the youth, and with a growing number of young people joining the job market in search of jobs every year, government cannot relent in its efforts at creating jobs and enabling environment for more entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth, especially in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Some 250,000 young people enter the job market every year, putting pressure on the limited employment opportunities. Getting this population employed remains our major socio-economic challenge. We need to create new jobs or help provide access to existing job vacancies,” Dr Bawumia stated.
