When Shares Start Dropping….

In the financial world, brokers would look at the Stock Exchange and study how the shares perform. Then they would advise their clients on what to do. When shares start dropping, the advice would be “sell yours before it loses value.” Some brokers would advise their clients, “if they keep falling buy them, and hold on to them. When they begin to rise again, then you sell and make good profit.”

In December 2024, the USD was $1.00 to GH¢14.69. It rose through to March 2025 when it hit $1.00 to GH¢15.52. Then it kept fluctuating till May 30, 2025 when the rate dropped to $1.00 to GH¢10.52. (Ref: DollarFX.org).

In the first world countries, something was happening. President Trump’s idea of making America great again, did not quite take off as he would have wished. His economic policies rather pulled down the almighty dollar.

The events of the economic meltdown of 2008 which hit the USA and some other rich nations, took a toll on countries in the developing world, and Ghana was no exception. Before the meltdown, the dollar was $1.00 to GH¢0.94, by December 2008 the dollar peaked and was $1.00 to GH¢1.44.

Ghana has done nothing positively to her economy to warrant the strengthening of the cedi, in recent times. It would also be impossible to improve upon the economy in five months to get to this point. As a developing nation the growth must be gradual over months with a steady pattern before such a feat could be achieved. And one thing, most important as such, is taking drastic measures that would cushion our economy against external aggressions like reductions in producer prices of our products and other measures in international trade, which is the monopoly of the world superpowers.

It is never easy in a world which only the powerful countries decide how the economies of developing nations should perform. For example, they subsidize their food production, but warn us not to subsidize ours. They make it more expensive for us to produce food that we can naturally produce here and dump inferior ones on us, which are cheaper than what we produce here.

During the Acheampong regime, Ghana was a top poultry producing nation in Africa, we had two sugar producing plants in Asutsuare and Komenda, rice production was springing up and indeed, we grew what we ate and ate what we grew.

If we had taken significant drastic measures to uphold our economy, if we had played the two superpowers at each other, the West and the East, we might have scrapped through and would have been a second world country by now.

Unfortunately, under the Rawlings administration we collapsed our sugar factories and poultry industries, just to adhere to international trade agreements.

If we had exported human resources to the industrialised nations like India did, we could be an industrial country now.

India exported labour; to work in the industries of the powerful nations and today, it is the leading country in IT. An example is, the Indian workforce in Leyland production plants made India to produce Tata automobiles, while, today Leyland is no more.

India has gone further to achieve a mark in space, as one of the five nations to go to the moon.

China’s economic growth was rather unique. It first closed its doors and started doing things from within and when it opened up, its industrial power placed it at par with the USA. The truth is, had the superpowers, in the West and Russia in the East, known what India and China were up to, these two nations would have been developing countries by now.

So, it now is down to us. It is interesting how government and members of the NDC are making some noise about this fall of the dollar because never has the cedi appreciated this much against the hard currencies. But they must know that this is not internally generated. And trust the superpowers, they must be seriously at work to reverse this process and when they finally achieve their aim, the dollar could go for $1.00 to GH¢18.00 by the end of the year. For something interesting is happening on TapTap Sent.

On Wednesday May 28, 2025 the GBP went for £1.00 to GH¢13.75. The following day it dropped to £1.00 to GH¢12.95 sending shockwaves in Ghanaians residing abroad who remit money down for projects and other things. By Friday, the GBP had peaked at £1.00 to GH¢13.60 and it is so till this morning before the markets opened. The question is, are the hard currencies rising?

One thing to notice is that the fall of the hard currencies is not having any significant effects on the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian. Except for decreases in fares, which had to be imposed on commercial transport, everything else is the same. This clearly shows that we are not in control, so what must government do to reap benefits from the fall of the hard currencies?

Government and Ghanaians must buy the pounds, euros and dollars and stockpile, for that is what is done, when shares start dropping. When they rise again which they surely would, then we can trade with our stock and make a lot of profits which will maintain some strength in our cedi, then we can also say, we have arrived.

By Hon. Daniel Dugan

Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle

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