The Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Ernest Addison, has indicated to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, that activities of illegal Forex trading, also known as the Black Market, have reduced.
This he attributes to better decisions taken by government in its management of the economy.
“I think the pressure in terms of the prevalence in terms of black market activity has gone down and the reason is that the economy is doing relatively well. There is no shortage of foreign exchange which is the incentive for the black market to flourish”, he explained.
Speaking at the Public Accounts Committee, Dr. Addison however said the bank is collaborating with the security agencies to further deal with the problem of illegal Forex trading.
“The black market is an illegal activity and the Bank of Ghana has collaborated with the security agencies to ensure that they do not thrive. We have had a few exercises in different parts of the country literally going out there to arrest black market traders in foreign exchange. It is an illegal activity, and I believe the security agencies are on top of that issue”, he said.
Various operators of Forex Bureaus have often called on government to control the activities of black marketers in the foreign exchange business.
They had often said the activities of the black marketers posed dire consequences to their businesses.
The black market operators usually offer slightly better rates than the forex bureaus, making them more attractive to the public compared to the forex which is regulated by the Central Bank.
BoG starts new forex directives to stabilize cedi against dollar
The Bank of Ghana in February 2019, issued some directives on how participants in the forex market must conduct their businesses to help stabilize the cedi.
The new directives being implemented are also targeted at improving information flow on how operators in the forex market will react and act on issues related to the cedi dollar relationship.
The directives were categorized under areas such as Ethics, fairness and Integrity; General dealings Principles and market conduct, as well as Risk management compliance among others.
The Bank of Ghana has since accepted millions of dollars worth of bids in its periodic auction of forex, to control the amount of foreign currency in circulation.
According to the regulator, this is to stem the perennial depreciation of the cedi.
