CEO of Dalex Finance, Mr Joe Jackson, says that more dollars should be made available to the commercial banks.
He makes the point that no one will go to the black market where the rates are a bit higher for foreign exchange if the banks have enough dollars.
“If the dollar is available to the banks, who will go to the forex (black market)? It will be irrational. Provide more dollars so that the bank rate will be available and at the same time low enough,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, August 2.
Meanwhile, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, has said that the central bank does not expect shortages of dollars to hit the commercial banks.
He says the BoG supports the commercial banks with inflows, hence does not expect to hear about shortages.
Asked for his response to concerns that importers aren’t getting dollars from the commercial banks to enable them to carry out their business activities, during the 125th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference in Accra on Wednesday, July 30, Dr Asiama said, “We are supporting the market regularly, almost every day. We support the market because, as you know, certain inflows that were going to the banks directly, especially in the area of mining, these flows accrue to us directly now. And we also purchase from the mining firms, so it is just natural that we intend to support the market. So we do not expect a shortage of dollars at the banks.”
He further said that there had been instances where the BoG received reports of shortages of dollars from importers, but thorough investigations were conducted into the matter.
“There have been instances like that [ shortage of dollars], but we moved to investigate only to find that some of those importers did not have the appropriate documentation, which was what was delaying it.
That said, we are working on it. Banks finance trade using their Nostro accounts. Nostro account is the bank account that the banks hold out there, it is out of which they pay for imports.
“We are also moving ahead to monitor the Nostro balances of banks from now on, we will be monitoring transactions in the Nostro balances of banks, all in an attempt to make sure that we don’t have an offshore rig going on and that all; Ghana’s foreign exchange earned from abroad is made available is made available to the system to fund our import and economic activities, that should help to stabilise the exchange rate going forward. ”
