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On Sunday, October 30, 2022, the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo addressed the nation on the state of Ghana's economy and informed the citizenry about measures his government is taking to resolve the economic crises.

The President touched on various points, and his speech concerning the performance of the country's currency is one of the areas that has generated arguments.

Giving assurance to the public of the government's commitment to resolving the economic hardships, President Nana Akufo-Addo proverbially said; "Fellow Ghanaians, as the French would say, l’argent n’aime pas le bruit, to wit, money does not like noise, sika mpɛ dede. Where there is chaos, where there is noise, where there is unrest, you will not find money. If you talk down your money, it will go down. If you allow some unidentifiable person to talk down your money, it will go down." 

Following his speech, many Ghanaians have been intrigued by the quote 'sika mpɛ dede'.

To prevent the public from misconstruing the President's quote, the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah in an interview on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" with Kwami Sefa Kayi Monday morning clarified the quote.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that the 'sika mpɛ dede' was made in reference to speculations on the impact of the cedi depreciation.

"I think the President said that in reference to the speculation issue. If we don't let the real purposes for currency trade work and we create panic in the system with people making social media audio that you should remove your money from the bank or else this will happen results in panic and then you will go to the banks and people are trying to do withdrawals to buy dollar because they have seen something on social media or sometimes, you will see news websites [otherwise well-respected news website] has done a story like it happened on Friday that if you have dollar, the government will seize it and give you cedi and that creates panic; so the point the President was making was all those things don't help," he said.

But despite the explanation offered by the Minister, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, says he is confused by the quote.

Speaking on 'Kokrokoo' Tuesday morning, Mr. Pratt noted that he could not make head or tail of what President Nana Addo meant by saying 'sika mpɛ rooff; sika mpɛ dede'.

"I kept thinking about it and couldn't understand him. Till date, I still cannot understand what he was saying," he said.

He also punched holes in Kojo Oppong Nkrumah's clarification of the quote saying the speculations cannot be avoided looking at the current circumstance where the cedi keeps falling.

"How can you avoid speculations under these circumstances? Why won't you take steps to protect your dollar? It's natural. There is nothing wrong with thinking ahead and find ways to protect your money. So, speculation by itself is not a problem."