Chief Executive Officer of Dusk Capital, Bernard Osei Tutu, has warned that the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) renewed directive against pricing goods and services in U.S. dollars will remain ineffective unless backed by strict enforcement and punitive sanctions.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The High Street Journal, Osei Tutu noted that the directive is not new, citing the Foreign Exchange Act, 2006 (Act 723), which prohibits the practice. However, he stressed that compliance has historically been weak.
“The laws are there. They can only bark, but they cannot bite. The big question is how do we make sure that going forward the law does not only bark but bite? You can only make it bite when there are punishments after the law has backed on you,” he argued.
He recalled similar attempts under former BoG Governor Henry Kofi Wampah, when compliance teams inspected hotels to ensure charges were in cedis. “Within two to three months, we were back to square one,” Osei Tutu said, adding that without deterrent sanctions, history risks repeating itself.
The Dusk Capital boss proposed tougher enforcement measures, including heavy fines, public naming of offenders, and on-the-ground monitoring. “This is not an armchair regulation. The compliance team of the Bank of Ghana must be on the ground. They must not sit in the comfort of the air conditioning and expect this law to work,” he emphasised.
He recommended that BoG adopt the marketing tool of “mystery shopping” to catch violators discreetly, from hotels to rental agencies. “Record such conversations, publish the names, and punish them severely. Until we do that, three, five, six months down the line, we’ll be back to square one,” he warned.
Osei Tutu, however, maintained that ending dollar pricing in Ghana is feasible if enforcement is tough and consistent, pointing to South Africa as an example. “You cannot exchange dollar in any transaction. You go to their malls and if you even bring dollar out, it is not accepted. As for feasibility, it is feasible. But it can only be feasible when there is punitive action against those who default,” he said.
His comments come as the central bank steps up its crackdown on foreign currency mispricing, reminding the public that under Act 723, only the Ghana cedi is legal tender for domestic transactions.
