<<Print>>

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has slammed those in opposition calling the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia a liar over the depreciation of the Cedi and urged them to stop the name calling.

According to the veteran journalist, proving that Dr. Bawumia is a liar in all the lectures he had given in the past about the economy under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration does not improve the value of the Cedi.

“...I must point out very clearly that today, if we’ve managed to prove that Dr. Bawumia is a liar, so what? Does it improve the value of the Cedi?” Kwesi Pratt quizzed.

Contributing as a panellist on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji weekend talk show, Uncle Kwesi as affectionately called, cautioned the critics to be careful of the kind of analyses they do since "the Cedi did not start depreciating today or yesterday".

He intimated that checking records of the Cedi since 1983 indicate the Cedi had devalued between 23,000 percent and 30,000 percent; thus, as at 1983, the Cedi was exchanging at 2.75 to a dollar.

“Today, if you are looking for 2.75 in 1983 in the current Cedi, you can’t find it; 2.75 in 1983 is worth less than 1 pesewa. Check, 1 pesewa today is bigger than 2.75 in 1983. So, the cumulative depreciation of the Cedi since 1983 is about 30,000 percent”, he indicated.

“Now, how do you blame the Mahama administration for this? How do you in all honesty blame Bawumia for this?” he asked and added that until the real cause of the problem is addressed, the Cedi will continue to depreciate no matter what we do”.

He further added “...I saw another statement which says that we are going to inject 4.5 billion dollars into the economy in order to stabilise the Cedi; that is a waste of everybody’s time. We have been trying this over and over again and the Cedi keeps depreciating. Every time we have a crisis with the Cedi, we look for dollars, pump it into the economy and the situation becomes worse and we continue to do that”.