Dr. Isaac Doku, an Economist and Lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba, has advised government to stabilize prices of staples to ease pressure on consumers.
According to him, the economy is gradually showing positive signs of rebound and he expects inflation to start easing. He indicated that if government rolls out policies that will ensure the stabilization of prices for staples, inflation will begin to decline in this fourth and final quarter of the year.
“The economy is showing some positive signs for growth. Inflation is expected to begin easing. Government should not necessarily subsidize but implement policies to ensure a stable price of staples, other than that poverty will worsen. If it calls for supporting farmers to reduce their prices, fair enough.”
Dr. Isaac Doku
Dr. Isaac Doku indicated in an interview with the Vaultz News that the “4.8 percent growth is expected” when sharing his thoughts on the second quarter growth rate reported by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
He, however, believes this growth can only be consolidated through proper policies rolled out by the government.
Though there was growth in the Agriculture sector, Dr. Doku indicated that government should have rolled out measures to address the fertilizer shortages which he attributed to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. He indicated that this was the reason why the sector did not expand as expected.
“The Russia-Ukraine war is having a toll on the sector to some extent. In terms of sectors, Agric is the third and it’s not responding as we expect it to be. For me, from where I stand, that’s what I see”.
Dr. Isaac Doku
Need to reduce reliance on food imports
Dr. Doku therefore, urged the government to scale-up efforts to invest in the agriculture sector so as to make Ghana food sufficient to reduce the country’s reliance on the importation of food.
He indicated that if government is not willing to reduce prices on petroleum products, it should concentrate on strengthening the agric sector to increase food supply which will eventually drive down prices of food on the market.
Just like Dr. Doku, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, recently lauded the performance of the economy in the first half of the year despite the recent economic challenges.
“Overall, our growth outturn of 3.4% and 4.8% in Q1 and Q2 of 2022 respectively, coupled with modest improvements in our fiscal position, suggests our economy is gradually on the upswing despite the numerous shocks we have faced over the past two years. These figures demonstrate that in spite of recent challenges, there has been economic growth, modest as the gains so far may be.”
Ken Ofori-Atta
In 2021, Ghana recorded a growth rate of 5.4%, higher than its projections of 4.4% by a 1 percentage point. Based on that performance, the Ministry of Finance issued a statement that it was going to revise the initial growth forecast of 5.8% for 2022 to reflect the stronger-than-expected rebound.
However, growth slowed to 3.4% in the first quarter of the year which forced the government to revise its Real GDP growth forecast for 2022 downwards by 2.1 percentage points to 3.7 percent due to the recent global and domestic economic challenges.
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