At a time when Ghanaian businesses queue for scarce dollars and importers forced to patronize FX rates far above the Bank of Ghana’s official quote, IMANI Africa’s latest policy brief issues a sober warning: the real problem isn’t just a “dollar shortage”, it’s that the entire exchange rate system has lost its integrity.
According to IMANI Vice President Bright Simons, it appears the economic managers are rather fixing the cedi in headlines, but not in fundamentals.
In a policy brief on the situation, IMANI exposes what it calls a “managed” interbank rate in Ghana’s forex market. The public policy think tank maintains that the interbank rate is being held low to project confidence and stability; however, it does not reflect actual market activity.
Banks conduct only small trades at the official rate, while genuine demand and supply happen elsewhere at rates GH¢1 or more above the official benchmark.
What we now have, according to the think tank, is a two-tier FX system: a nice-sounding rate for press conferences, and a real, painful rate for businesses buying raw materials and paying foreign suppliers.
That disconnect creates distortions, encourages speculation, and pushes even well-meaning businesses into grey-market workarounds just to stay afloat.
For IMANI, there are fundamental issues in the economy that the government must fix to arrive at a strong and stable exchange rate that reflects the economic realities of the country.
The Real Fix: Competitiveness, Not Control
Bright Simons argues that this pricing distortion is just the surface ripple of deeper waters. “To build a truly stable cedi,” he asserts, “we must strengthen the real economy.” That means shifting away from exporting raw cocoa, cashew, and gold, and towards value-added goods and tradable services.
It means investing in mechanized agriculture, industrial innovation, infrastructure, and skills development. Ghana’s trade structure, where over 80% of exports are raw commodities, is a recipe for long-term currency fragility, not resilience.
“A strong currency is backed by a strong economy. That means increasing productivity and producing value-added goods and services the world wants. Ghana must invest in mechanized agriculture and smart industrialization, modern infrastructure, skills development, technology transfer, and innovation to move up the value chain,” IMANI indicated.
The policy brief added that, “Without structural transformation, Ghana will continue to export raw goods and import everything else, a model that locks us into long-term currency weakness.”
Build Smarter Importation, Not Just Reduction in Import
For IMANI, the country can’t keep trying to signal strength. It must build it. Simons quips. One way to build the strength is smarter importation, not just less of it.
The country must strive to import capital goods that feed local productivity. Support firms that replace low-value imports. Diversify our export mix. That’s how Ghana can move the needle sustainably.
“The goal is not to stop imports but to import smarter. There must be prioritization of capital goods and intermediates that support domestic production, support domestic firms to replace low-value consumer imports, diversify export earnings from raw cocoa and gold to processed goods and tradable services,” IMANI argued.
Bright Simons added, “trade surpluses from a healthy, diversified base are what give currencies real strength.”
Addressing the Accountability Gap
Beyond trade reform, IMANI also spotlights what it calls the “missing link” in Ghana’s industrial transformation, which is transparency. Simons singles out EXIM Bank’s opaque support for companies like Darko Farms and Ekumfi Juice. He claims millions have been spent, but little to show and without any public data.
With this approach, the country cannot learn what worked if data is never published on performance. He is therefore advocating for a system that incorporates feedback mechanisms, public scrutiny, and real accountability. Otherwise, we just recycle old failures in new wrappers.
“Publish program performance data, create feedback loops to adapt and improve, and encourage independent scrutiny from think tanks, academia, and the public. Without learning and transparency, we keep recycling the same broken tools under new names with the same disappointing outcomes,” he indicated.
The Bottom line: Fix the Economy, Not Just the Cedi
According to IMANI, the ultimate problem is a broken political economy. Citizens cry “fix the cedi” without demanding the policies that actually strengthen it. Politicians, in turn, offer shortcuts, which just window dress over structural rot.
The result is a currency whose performance is more about press optics than production capacity.
For him, until Ghana realigns its currency regime with market fundamentals, dollar rationing and FX shadow pricing will persist. Businesses will pay for distortions they didn’t create. And the cedi will remain strong in speeches, but weak at the counter.
