GEORGTOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Guyana government has dismissed reports of a foreign currency crisis warning that such reports had the potential to destabilise the country.

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan said the report published in a local newspaper about the foreign currency crisis had the ability to destabilise the foreign exchange market and “ultimately destabilise the development of Guyana”.

He described the media report as “a lot of hearsay” and wondered whether the newspaper was on a crusade against the David Granger government.

 “I have no problem with people attacking the government, criticising the government …but for you to use situations like these baseless, meaningless, misleading headlines to among other things scare, add to the scare that is going on that is being used by the opposition as it relates to the budget, one begins to wonder what really is the agenda,” Jordan said.

The Bank of Guyana Governor, Dr Gobind Ganga, said the headline and article in the newspaper were both “misleading,” adding that the article could be undermining, create false expectations and “obviously put the whole economy in a spin because of the negativity that was portrayed!”

Ganga reiterated that there is no evidence that any such purported crisis is looming.

He said that commercial banks have actually increased their gross foreign exchange holdings with figures showing that at the end of September the figure stood at US$388.4 million as against US$357 million for the corresponding period last year.

The Central Bank, he added had US$598 million in 2015 and that this figure has increased to approximately US$625 million in 2016.

“There is an increase in the holding of foreign exchange and hence there is availability from the holdings,” the BOG Governor said, adding that there has been an increase in demand from some foreign entities outside of the traditional banking system, particularly since 2014.

He used the example of increased supplies of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) currencies in the local banking system.

“More specifically we had an increase in Trinidadian dollars from 9.1 million in 2014 to 24.4 million in 2015”.

The newspaper claimed that commercial banks were adversely affected by having to wait for a supply of foreign exchange.

But Ganga dismissed the suggestion saying “there is not piling because of a demand for foreign exchange at the commercial banks.

“No there are not people who are waiting. You will find the commercial banks know who are the legitimate customers and who are not, and there is the demand from elsewhere out of Guyana,” Ganga added.