The Central Bank and the Ministry Finance should stop auctioning hard currency to traders, an activist has suggested.

The bank has been selling US dollars to businessmen in a bid to reduce skyrocketing market prices. Traders use the money to import goods from East Africa.

However, this is seen to have little impact on the market as some essential goods continue to be scarce and prices remain high across the country.

Other government institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce last year said the sale wasn’t helping at all, claiming that the bnk was offering the dollars to businesspeople who could not import goods nor ‘traceable’.

The Executive Director of the Community Development for Progress Organization, CEPO, says the two institutions should be involved in control demand and supply to reduce the price of basic items in the markets.

Edmund Yakani says auctioning the dollars to the commercial banks has not helped improve the economy.

Mr. Yakani says the two institutions should instead buy essential commodities in bulk and sell them to the traders at subsidized prices.

“The decision needs to be reached at the level of the central bank and then at the level of the ministry of finance,” he said.

“Once this food is imported and stored in government stores, then the ministry of finance would start establishing government cooperatives where you have a reduced price that will challenge the traders to reduce their prices.”

Mr. Yakani was reacting to the removal of the Governor of the Central Bank, Kornelio Koriom Mayiik and his deputy, John Dor Majok over the weekend.

The President has appointed Dr. Othom Rago as the new Central Bank Governnor, and Mr. Dier Tong Ngor as the deputy.