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Claim: President John Mahama is alleging that the cedi depreciated by 25% in the first half of 2024.
Verdict: False. Data from the Ministry of Finance indicates that the cedi depreciated 7.7%, 6.9%, and 5.6% and 18.6%, 17.9%, and 16.0% against the dollar, pound sterling, and euro in the first and second quarters of 2024, respectively.
Full Text
Eight months into the John Mahama administration, the president held a media encounter on September 10, 2025, as part of his media engagements. Invited media personalities attended the event at the Jubilee House.
Journalists and media personalities were allowed to ask questions, which the president answered. The questions spanned the state of peace and security, economic stability, the state of the cedi, and many other issues of national interest.
In response to a question regarding the present value of the cedi posed by Kemini Amanor of Media General Group, Mahama claimed that the cedi depreciated by 25% in the first half of 2024.
“I believe that it is about stopping the rapid depreciation of the currency. Almost every currency will realise either depreciation or appreciation in the course of a year. But when you have steep depreciation of about… like we had in 2024, 25% depreciation in the currency in the first half of the year,” he said in his response.
Find the claim from 51:40 to 52:11 as uploaded on JoyNews’ YouTube. Find a video of the same claim on X here and here.
DUBAWA decided to verify this claim to prevent misinformation and disinformation in public discourse about the state of the cedi.
Verification
The Ministry of Finance in Ghana is the primary source of micro and macroeconomic indicators and figures. The Ministry periodically releases data on economic indicators. According to the ministry’s data, the cedi depreciated by 18.6%, 17.9%, and 16.0% against the dollar, pound, and euro, respectively, by the close of June 2024.
| YEAR 2024 | USD | GBP | Euro |
| Q 1 (March) | 7.7% | 6.9% | 5.6% |
| Q 2 (June) | 18.6% | 17.9% | 16.0% |
| Q 3 (Sep.) | 24.8% | 28.6% | 25.5% |
| Q 4 (Dec.) | 19.2% | 17.8% | 13.7% |
Depreciation rates of the cedi against major currencies in 2024. Table Source: DUBAWA
Find data on the cedi’s quarterly depreciation rates 2024 on page 2 of the Quarterly Public Debt Statistics Bulletin by the Ministry of Finance here, here, here, and here. Also, data from the Bank of Ghana’s Summary of Economic and Financial Data, March 2025 edition, corroborates Ministry of Finance data. On the table, appreciation is represented with “app(+)”, whereas depreciation is represented with depr(-).
Table source: Summary of Economic and Financial Data, March 2025, Bank of Ghana
Conclusion
The claim that the cedi depreciated by 25% by the “first half” of 2025 is false.
