Ghana’s persistent exchange rate instability is not a symptom of weak export performance but a consequence of the country’s failure to retain the foreign exchange it earns, particularly from the extractive sector, Joe Jackson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dalex Finance, has argued.
Speaking at the 2026 Dean of Business School Lecture Series at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Jackson said the continued misdiagnosis of the cedi’s weakness had produced policy responses that consistently missed the real problem. He characterised the currency’s recent trajectory as one of dangerous volatility, noting that the cedi depreciated by nearly 71 percent between 2016 and 2024, before rebounding by approximately 40 percent between 2024 and 2025.
He challenged the assumption that Ghana needed to export more to stabilise its currency, pointing out that the country had in fact recorded trade surpluses in recent years. The core problem, he said, was structural. In 2024, Ghana posted a trade surplus of approximately US$5.1 billion, yet nearly US$8 billion left the economy through service imports, profit repatriation, external debt servicing, and capital flight.
The gold sector drew particular attention. Of approximately US$11.9 billion earned from gold exports, Jackson said less than half was retained within the domestic economy. He contrasted Ghana’s situation with South Africa and Botswana, where stronger local participation and higher levels of value addition have allowed those countries to capture a greater share of returns from their natural resources.
“Ghana generates significant forex inflows, but much of it leaves the economy through various channels,” he said.
Jackson acknowledged the establishment of the Ghana Gold Board as a positive development, describing it as a step towards improving value retention in the sector. He said the initiative had helped centralise gold purchases, align local pricing with international benchmarks, and formalise artisanal mining activities. Early indicators pointed to the potential for a 75 percent increase in export value and a more than two-fold rise in contributions from artisanal mining. However, he cautioned that the Gold Board’s intervention addressed only part of the challenge, as major leakages through service imports, profit repatriation, and debt servicing remained largely unresolved.
On the domestic side, Jackson identified high inflation as a compounding factor. He noted that inflation, which peaked at around 54 percent in 2022, remained elevated relative to Ghana’s major trading partners through 2024. Sustained inflation eroded purchasing power, increased demand for imports, pushed up interest rates, and discouraged long-term holding of the local currency.
He urged policymakers to shift focus from boosting export volumes to ensuring that a greater share of earnings is retained within the economy. Achieving meaningful exchange rate stability, he said, required both deliberate external strategies to deepen local participation in the extractive sector and domestic fiscal discipline to bring down inflation. Currency volatility, he concluded, was ultimately a reflection of weak economic discipline rather than a natural consequence of Ghana’s trade position.
