Trace illegal sale of foreign exchange to bank staff – GUTA

The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), is calling on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to go beyond flushing-out the activities of ‘Black Market’ operators by investigating its own staff and some banks, aiding the illegal activities in the ‘black market’.

GUTA claimed some employees of the Central Bank and certain banks have been supplying dollars to the operators.

According to the association, although the move by the regulator to clamp down on the activities in the ‘Black Market’ was a bold step, probing and prosecuting persons connected to banks and the BoG for supplying dollars to the ‘Black Market’ was equally important.

President of GUTA, Dr Joseph Obeng, who spoke to Joy Business after his re-election as Leader of GUTA alleged that some of the ‘Black Market’ operators come with bundles of money with BoG stamps on them.

“We have seen the BoG stamps and all that on some of the money. This means that they [Black market operators] are not working in isolation, but in connivance with the banks. Some of these banks trade in forex as a commodity when they get it they sell it to their clients”, he alleged.

Dr Obeng urged the Central Bank to engage the services of the BNI to trace the supply of some of the foreign currencies that get to the Black Market to stop the supply from the source.

“They [BoG] should use ‘Black Market’ operators as scapegoat, once they are arrested to trace the link that these operators are having with the banks”.

He is of the view that such an exercise would expose a lot of rot in the financial sector which would lead to the regulator arresting bank officials and some of its own staff engaged in the illegal sale of dollars to ‘Black Market’ operators.

The advice followed a distress action embarked by the Bank of Ghana in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service on Monday, September 16, 2022 arresting over 76 illegal foreign exchange dealers operating in the Black Market to save the cedi from further depreciation.