Ghana to say goodbye to Cedi for ECO currency

The government of Ghana has served notice it will join the eight West African countries adopting the ECO as a currency from 2020.

“This is a welcome decision, which Ghana warmly applauds,” the presidency said in a statement Saturday night.

“It is good testimony to the importance that is being attached not only to the establishment of a monetary union, but also to the larger agenda of West African integration.

“We, in Ghana, are determined to do whatever we can to enable us join the Member Stats of UEMOA, soon, in the use of the ECO, as, we believe, it will help remove trade and monetary barriers, reduce transaction costs, boost economic activity, and raise the living standards of our people,” the president’s Director of Communication, Eugene Arhin, said.

He added: “We have a historic opportunity to create a new reality for the peoples of ECOWAS, a reality of general prosperity and progress. So, let us seize it.”

“Ghana urges the other Member States of ECOWAS to work rapidly towards implementing the decisions of the Authorities of ECOWAS, including adopting a flexible exchange rate regime, instituting a federal system for the ECOWAS Central Bank, and other related agreed convergence criteria, to ensure that we achieve the single currency objectives of ECOWAS, as soon as possible, for all Member States,” the statement added.

On December 21, 2019, the President of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), Alassane Ouattara, at a news conference with French President, Emmanuel Macron, in Ivory Coast made a declaration on the decision taken by eight West African Member States of UEMOA to discontinue the use of the Financial Community of Africa (CFA) franc currency.

The eight West African countries which will start using the ECO from the year 2020 include Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

The ECO was the proposed name for the common currency that the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) planned to introduce in the framework of the Economic Community of West African States.

Source: Daily Mail GH