Hopeson Adorye Rejects Claims Cedi Is World’s Weakest
The characterisation of the Ghana cedi as the world’s weakest currency is drawing sharp resistance from within the ruling party, with a senior NPP figure arguing the label is not only inaccurate but fundamentally misreads how currency performance should be measured.
Hopeson Adorye, Director of Field Operations for the New Patriotic Party, made his position clear on JoyNews’ AM Show on Tuesday, pushing back against what he described as an unfair and decontextualised framing of the cedi’s recent depreciation.
His argument was not that the cedi hasn’t weakened, he acknowledged it has. The dispute, rather, is about what that depreciation actually means, and whether comparing Ghana’s currency to those of developed economies is a valid basis for judgment at all.
“The performance of the cedi should be assessed based on Ghana’s economic structure and prevailing market conditions,” he said, stressing that Ghana operates as a lower-middle-income developing market economy, a context he insisted must inform any serious evaluation of the currency’s trajectory.
Central to Adorye’s defence was the Bank of Ghana’s exchange rate management approach. He described the central bank’s strategy as deliberately maintaining the cedi within a band of GH¢10 to GH¢12 against the US dollar, a range he said is designed not just for stability, but to protect the export sector.
The logic, as he laid it out, runs counter to the instinct that a stronger currency is always better. A cedi that appreciates too sharply, he argued, could erode the competitiveness of Ghanaian exporters and eat into their earnings from international trade, outcomes that would carry their own economic costs.
With the exchange rate currently sitting at approximately GH¢11.6 to the dollar, Adorye pointed to that figure as confirmation that the currency is operating within the central bank’s intended range, and therefore performing as managed, not collapsing.
The broader point Adorye appeared determined to make was one of framing: that measuring the cedi against the standards of advanced economies produces a distorted picture. For a developing market economy navigating its own structural realities, the relevant question is not how the cedi compares to the dollar or the pound in absolute terms, but whether it is functioning within the parameters set for an economy at Ghana’s stage of development.
Whether that argument satisfies critics will depend largely on how Ghanaians are experiencing the currency’s value in their daily lives, a gap between economic theory and lived reality that no exchange rate band fully closes.
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