Kwesi Pratt: Gold For Oil Policy Will Help Us A Lot 

Kwesi Pratt Jr., the seasoned journalist, has applauded the government’s decision to use the nation’s gold stockpiles to pay for oil.

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia launched the initiative on Thursday. The government is developing a new regulation to allow the purchase of oil goods using gold.

This policy is intended to address the declining foreign exchange reserves and the demand for dollars from oil importers, both of which are weakening the cedi and driving up living expenses.

The new regulation will be put into effect as scheduled during the first quarter of 2023.

Interestingly, the new policy “will substantially impact our balance of payments and greatly minimize the persistent depreciation of our currency” when it is implemented as scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.

As a matter of fact, the government projects that this particular will bring in $3 billion in revenue to the country.

Additionally, Dr. Bawumia denied rumors that this measure was opposed to the usage of the US currency in international trade.

Speaking at the Accra 2022 AGI Awards, he made the asserted as follows:

“Unfortunately some people have misinterpreted this as Ghana being against the use of the US dollar in international transactions. Far from it. We want to accumulate more US dollar reserves in the future.”

Furthermore, he iterated that: “If we implement the gold for oil policy as it as envisioned, it will fundamentally change our balance of payments and significantly reduce the persistent depreciation of our currency with its associated increases in fuel, electricity, water, transport and food prices.”

To that effect, Kwesi Pratt Jr. has praised the government’s initiatives to improve living conditions and the local currency by using gold reserves to buy oil, which will generate 3 billion dollars in earnings for the country.

He revealed this to Peace FM’s anchor Kwami Sefa Kayi saying:

“For me, this policy will help us a lot because, according to the Vice President, when we use the gold to buy oil, we will get at least 3 billion. This is even more than the money we are seeking from IMF.”

Meanwhile, on the Vice President’s clarification that this approach is intended to be counterproductive to the dollar, he disagreed.

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Conclusion

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