Ghanaian leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has broken silence over the adoption of Eco as single currency in the West African sub-region urging members of the Monetary Union of West Africa (UEMOA) not to fix the new Eco currency to the Euro as it has been decided by the 8-members countries.
The 8-member countries of UEMOA announced late last year that they were going replace the CFA Franc with the new ECO currency beginning 2020 as single currency for the member states.
The announcement of introducing the single currency has generated numerous debates in both political and economic circles in Ghana with some people arguing that it would be waste of tax payers’ money if government go ahead to accept the new currency after printing and circulating 100 and 200 Ghana Cedis notes.
According to Ghanaian Times report on Friday, President Nana Addo was quoted as saying that “government is determined to do whatever it can to join the eight countries using the Eco, it does not want the currency to be fixed to the Eco”.
He said his administration is advocating for a flexible exchange rate regime to allow currency to perform based on it demand and supply.
Meanwhile, government has not yet declared in clear terms that adopting the flexible exchange rate regime would be a condition to be met before Ghana would adopt the currency.
Ghana, Nigeria, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone are nomeber countries of the UEMOA and therefore not part of the CFA Franc monetary union. These countries are yet to decide whether to join or not although all ECOWAS members have expressed their commitment to use single currency this year.
DAP/GIK/APA