Outgoing Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has defended the Central Bank’s decision to limit cash payments in dollars to bank customers.  Most foreign currency account holders have in recent times raised concerns about their bankers rather them in cedi equivalent for withdrawals they make. Also are concerns of their inability to receive more than 10 thousand dollars over the counter.

But the answering questions from the parliamentary appointment committee, the Vice Presidential nominee, explained the Central Bank’s directive is in the long term interest of the economy.

“In many countries, you cannot go to the bank and take dollars over the counter. In every country you are rather given the equivalent in domestic currency. We became very liberal and allowed people but we realized there were many instances where people went to the banks and wanted to take sometimes as much as half a million dollars over the counter” he noted.

“But for money laundering considerations we thought that should not be encouraged. So what we told the banks was to put a limit on the total amount of foreign currency that they could withdraw over the counter which is 10 thousand dollars” he further explained.