Yesterday was another familiar “drama”. It was another day of a police swoop, which once again brought the ‘abokyi‘ dollar business back in the headlines.
As has always been the case, a joint team from the CID Operations Unit and the Bank of Ghana stormed the usual hotspots in Accra, Tudu, Circle, Airport, Osu, and rounded up 41 suspects. The scene was familiar. Ghanaians and foreign nationals were rounded up and packed into police vans, accused of trading foreign currency without authorization.
If this storyline sounds old, that’s because it is. We’ve read this script so many times that even the abokyi boys know the lines by heart. A swoop, an arrest, a warning, a press release, and tadaa!!! within days, the same men are back at the same spots under the same umbrellas, shouting the same tune “Dollar! Dollar! Euro! Pound!”
The Abokyi Menace: A National Déjà Vu
It will be repetitive to say this is not the first swoop. It is not even the third. It is not even the tenth. It is the uptenth, yes, mysterious number we use when counting becomes embarrassing. For years, Ghana has chased illegal forex traders in circles, like a cat determined to catch its own tail.
The result? Same problem, different day. Despite these arrests, illegal forex trading continues to flourish because the country’s very system silently allows it. It can be agreed that when an illegal activity becomes as predictable as evening traffic at Circle, it means the problem is no longer just the perpetrators. It is nurtured by the ecosystem, which feeds it and helps it flourish.
Why the Abokyi Business Never Dies
Let’s be honest. Abokyi thrives because it fills a gap. A gap created by our own systems. People want fast forex. Banks move slowly. Bureau rates don’t match market expectations.
And here comes the man at the street corner. He is quick, flexible, and always ready to “sort you out.” Which rational human being frustrated by the system won’t seek a “friend” at the street corner?
But the painful part is that the very convenience that attracts customers is the same convenience that puts the cedi under pressure. For every illegal transaction performed at the black market, a part of the formal system chips away. And then we all gather on the radio and TV to wonder why the currency is misbehaving.
Swoops Are Not Solutions
As has been the case with the recent exercise, Police swoops always make headlines, but they do not make any significant change. You can be assured that one can get a dollar at the very spots where the swop took place within even hours.
Because once the dust settles, the market resets. To be real, the abokyi forex business is not just a scattered group of men whispering exchange rates. It is a coordinated, well-oiled underground market that has survived governments, inflation waves, and countless “we’re cracking down” announcements.
It is time the country recognizes that you cannot arrest your way out of a systemic problem. You solve it by shutting the supply lines, reforming the forex regime, and making the formal pathway more attractive than the street corner.
Time for Bold, Uncomfortable, Lasting Measures
If the government, the Bank of Ghana, and the security agencies truly want to end this cycle, they must stop treating abokyi as a seasonal nuisance and confront it as a structural weakness in the foreign exchange system.
There is no doubt that those in authority know what a lasting solution looks like. They just need the will and the long-term commitment to implement it.
The country cannot keep spinning in this forex merry-go-round forever. We can’t keep chasing ‘abokyi’ forever, but will this be the last? It’s just a matter of time.
