Business24 ePaper (June10, 2020)

EDITION B24 | 59

WEDNESDAY JUNE 10, 2020

THEBUSINESS24ONLINE.NET

Cost of printing cedi notes doubles in 2019 International airlines could benefit from 20% landing fee cut MORE ON PG 3

BY DOMINICK ANDOH

Governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr. Ernest Addison says the printing of the new notes doesn’t downplay government’s cash lite agenda

BY NII ANNERQUAYE ABBEY

The central bank’s cost of printing the country’s legal tender went up by 103 percent last year, as bigger denominations of the cedi were introduced and existing notes were upgraded with improved security features. According to the Bank of Ghana’s 2019 annual report released last week, more than GH¢312m was spent on printing notes compared to an amount of GH¢153m in 2018. The cost incurred in printing the cedi is inclusive of fees paid to the agency contracted to undertake the exercise as well as costs the bank describes as “other expenses”.

The year-on-year increase in the cost of printing cedi notes was the largest in at least the past seven years. While the central bank routinely prints new notes to replace worn-out ones, two major projects it undertook in 2019 which could have influenced the sudden hike in costs were the upgrade of existing bank notes and introduction of a GH¢2 coin and new notes in GH¢100 and GH¢200 denominations. Despite the huge cost incurred in the printing of the notes, the BoG’s annual report, however, indicated that other costs associated with the printing of the legal tender declined.

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