The Cedi is not just a currency; it’s a mirror
By Kofi Sasraku
I realised the cedi had been telling us the truth long before the economists did, long before the IMF briefings, the panic in the forex bureaus, or the political promises that always arrive too late.
The moment came years ago in the Osu market, standing near a woman selling smoked fish. She watched a boy update the exchange rate on a chalkboard and just shook her head.
“Every week, the numbers change.
But my customers’ pockets don’t,” she said in Ga.
It wasn’t anger. It was resignation, the kind you hear in Tamale when a trader adjusts the cost of shea butter, or in Takoradi when a mechanic tells you spare parts have “gone up again,” or in Hohoe when a farmer wonders if fertiliser prices will ever stabilise.
The cedi doesn’t need a podium or a radio station. It speaks through the lives of ordinary people.
And what it says is simple: It is reflecting us.
1. A currency is a story — and Ghana’s story is unbalanced
Currencies don’t collapse on their own.
They collapse because of the stories we write into them.
Ghana’s story, from Wa to Aflao, from Sunyani to Cape Coast, is one of a nation that consumes more than it produces:
- imported rice in villages that grow maize
- foreign chicken in towns surrounded by poultry farms
- second-hand clothes in regions with cotton fields
- manufacturing replaced by trading
- local enterprises overshadowed by import giants
The cedi records all this. It is the mirror we keep avoiding.
2. We repeat the same cycle, and every region feels it
The pattern has become a national rhythm
- prices rise in Techiman markets
- transport fares jump in Kumasi
- shopkeepers in Bolgatanga quietly re-tag their goods
- banks in Accra adjust forex boards
- government appeals for patience
- IMF negotiators board their flights
Then we breathe a little, forget a little, and wait for the cycle to start again.
The cedi does not misbehave.
The cedi reacts, predictably, to an economy built on the wrong foundations.
3. The cedi exposes our habits, uncomfortable as they are
Walk through any Ghanaian town and you see clues:
- foreign drinks dominate bars in Keta
- imported furniture fills showrooms in Koforidua
- construction materials from overseas build homes in Tarkwa
- cosmetics from Asia line shelves in Kasoa
- electronics from everywhere flood Tema
We have shaped a culture that celebrates importation as progress. But no currency can survive a national identity built on buying what we refuse to produce.
The cedi is not insulting us. It is mirroring our habits.
4. The cedi forces us to confront reality — and we don’t like it
The uncomfortable truth is this:
Ghana’s economy is not structured for stability.
It is structured for survival.
And survival economies:
- chase revenue
- avoid long-term planning
- depend on external rescue
- build consumption, not competitiveness
Until we correct this, from district agriculture policies to industrial clusters to value-addition in every region, the cedi will continue speaking the same painful language.
The cedi is not the enemy — it is the messenger
If you listen closely, the cedi isn’t asking for applause.
It is asking for honesty.
It is asking us to look beyond the rhetoric and confront the truth we already know:
No currency can be stronger than the nation that carries it.
No exchange rate can outperform the behaviour of its people.
No economy can grow if it fears the discipline required to change.
From the markets of Kejetia, to the lorry stations of Tamale, to the fishing communities of Axim, the story is the same:
The cedi is not failing us. It is describing us.
And mirrors do not lie.