I saw a post on a Ghanaian owned online hair shop which suggested that the prices of their hair bundles will go up due to the depreciation of the cedi.

One basic reason every economist will tell you is helping the cedi depreciate is the high import rate as against exports. And we all know that a country like Ghana with its men and women with physique like a typical African cannot produce long, silky, or wavy 1, 2,3(a, b, c) type of hair, so the only option is to import.

How is it that we are rejecting our natural coily 4(a,b,c) hair type for the Brazilian, Russian, Filipino, Italian and Mongolian hair type? Of course, the love as Africans or Ghanaians for foreign goods comes in here (I’ll save this conversation for another time).

Just last Christmas, many hair shops organised special December sales. One popular hair shop after the sales posted on Instagram that she was able to sell over 24,000 bundles of hair. So before the sales, they obviously ‘turned’ some Ghanaian cedis into dollars or any of the major trading currencies to buy the hair. You need not be told the exchange rate after the Christmas season.

Some economists predicted that the cedi will stabilise once the rate of importation declines after Christmas but unfortunately that did not happen. The cedi is almost GHS6 to a dollar now, with the pound hovering around GHS7.

Obviously, it’s getting worse by the day. The government has already indicated its decision to pump $800 million into the system to stabilise the cedi. Again, some economists argue that it is no sustainable way of stabilising the cedi.

My point simply is, as women, we can reduce the number of hair bundles or wigs we wear if we cannot completely do away with it and maintain our natural hair which belongs to us and can never be taken away from us. Instead of using the money to import hair bundles, why don’t we invest it into local hair products which will improve the length and thickness of our hair.

The products that really ensure very good hair can be found in our villages, for some reason, we have abandoned them. Products like coconut oil, shea butter, African black soap, avocado oil and the rest.

These products are freshly made without chemicals and are good for the skin and hair. Apart from creating jobs, its health benefits are vital and again we can help save the cedi in our own small way.

By: Gemma Appiah

The writer is a broadcast journalist with the Class Media Group (CMG)