Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and also the Secretary to the Treasury, has made a clarification on the decreasing value of the Ugandan shilling against the US dollar, saying that it is temporary because Uganda has a free market economic system and a floating exchange rate.

While appearing on national television on Thursday morning, February 29, 2024, Ggoobi assured Ugandans that the matter was temporary and would go away soon.

“I want to assure Ugandans that this is a temporary shock. We are even likely not to get to June. It is temporary because ours is a free market, and we have a floating exchange rate,” Ggoobi said.

According to PSST, the foreign exchange risk in recent days has been characterised by the depreciation of the shilling against the United States dollar (USD).

Ggoobi said that the depreciation of the shilling has been occasioned by the allocation of the economic Euro bond (growing in June 2024) and structure bond in Kenya, as well as the Euro bond in Ghana.

In October 2023, the Bank of Uganda announced that the Uganda shilling depreciated by 5.1% against the US dollar, to an annual average exchange rate of Shs 3,752.47 per US dollar in Financial Year (FY) 2022/23, up from Shs 3571.78 recorded in FY2021/22.