Finance and Banking analyst, Dr. Richmond Atuahene, has said remittances have the potential to generate more revenue for the country than cocoa and gold combined.
According to Dr. Atuahene, the country has over-concentrated on gold and cocoa neglecting the huge potential of remittances.
He contended that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) data available reveals remittance inflows alone over 10 years generated US$28.6 billion while cocoa and gold over the same period generated US$18.7 billion and US$7.6 billion respectively.
He further noted that the total amount of remittances over the same period is even higher when BoG figures are compared with that of the World Bank. Adding that the World Bank reports US$36 billion while BoG reports US$28 billion signifying the lapses in the structures for tracking and recording remittances.
Given this, he described remittances as ‘super gold,’ and called for proper systems and structures that will regularize remittances to the benefit of the country.
“It is super gold because it is something if it is well structured, captured, traced into the balance sheet, I think Ghana will be somewhere, I think maybe near Dubai because it is something that will support the economy,” Dr. Atuahene indicated.
“I am only talking about the remittances captured by the central bank. The difference between the World Bank is US$36 billion, but the country captured only US$28 billion, so if we were able to trace, track and capture, we would have captured about $36 billion and that is far more exceedingly above gold and cocoa,” he added.
