The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Paul Acquah, announced over the weekend at the Chartered Institute of Bankers Annual Dinner and Awards Night in Accra that the Ghanaian national currency – cedi, would be re-denominated.
Basically, 10,000 cedis would now be one new Ghana Cedi.
According to Ghana News Agency (GNA):
This means that 500,000 cedis would be equivalent to 50GH Cedis, 200,000 cedis would be equivalent to 20GH cedis, 100,000 cedis would be equivalent to and 10GH cedis, 5,000 cedis would be equivalent to 50Gp, 2,000 cedis would be equivalent to 20Gp and 1,000 cedis would be equivalent to 10Gp.
Dr Acquah said the series of the new set of notes would be 910ne GH Cedi’, 91Five GH Cedis’, 9110 GH cedis’, 9120 GH cedis’ and 9150 GH cedis’ whilst the coins takes 1Gp, 5Gp, 10Gp, 20Gp, 50Gp.
He said both the old and new cedi banknotes and coins would be in physical circulation for a period of six months after which the old notes and coins would only be exchanged at the Bank of Ghana and any commercial or rural bank but would not be legal tender.
The reasons for the re-denomination are:
- high transaction costs at the cashiers, general inconvenience and high risks involved in carrying loads of currency for transaction purposes
- increasing difficulties in maintaining bookkeeping and statistical records
- ensuring compatibility with data processing software
- the strain on payments system, particularly Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
If/when this re-denomination is done, this will theoretically higher than the US Dollar, if today’s $1 = 9,200 cedis is anything to go by. The cedi has been virtually stable against the world’s leading currencies, for some time now.
I makes me wonder though, what is going to happen the Eco of which Ghana is a part. The Eco is the proposed name for the common currency that the West African Monetary Zone plans to introduce by 2009 in the framework of ECOWAS.
why do you feel a need to dumb down the announcement? The heading is misleading.
I think it’s probably best for now if ghana stay out of the ECO and only think about joining at a future date.