The Managing Director for Graphic Communications Group Limited, Kenneth Ashigbey has called on all financial institutions, especially banks, to initiate ‘‘out of the box’’ ways to curtail the depreciation of the cedi, which is currently getting the best of the central bank. The Graphic boss made the statement at the 11th Ghana Banking Awards ceremony held in Accra.

‘‘I am aware of the tremendous roles you have played and continue to play in stabilising the economy, among other things, and it is against this backdrop that I urge all banks to help devise pragmatic and innovative solutions to help arrest the further depreciation of the cedi against the major currencies, particularly, the dollar’’, Mr Ashigbey entreated.

Mr Ashigbey noted that the perennial declining of the cedi, particularly, during electioneering seasons leads to erosion of the economic gains enjoyed by all citizens and therefore called for a lasting solution, in which he said banks had a chief role to play.

The country's currency has since the beginning of the year experienced a free fall against the world's hard currencies, stimulating a number of interventions by the central bank including the injection of more than $1 billion into the money market in a bid to stabilise the local money.