<\/p>\n
Prof Samuel Annim, Govt Statistician<\/strong>)<\/p>\n GOVERNMENT STATISTICIAN, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, has attributed the country\u2019s rising inflation to the fiscal rather than monetary policy.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to resolve the inflation rate [issue] in Ghana, it\u2019s not a monetary policy argument. Thankfully, the Governor of the central bank has indicated that we should begin to think of the supply side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Prof. Annim said his when he delivered his inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Coast.<\/p>\n According to him, the rising cost of goods can only be tackled through policy decisions taken by the government on the supply side.<\/p>\n Prof. Kobina Annim said that data collected from 54 food trading outlets across the country in January 2018, during the COVID-19 period in May 2020 and this year, amidst the Russia-Ukraine war in April 2022, point to wide disparities in prices at different outlets during the two periods of economic turmoil.<\/p>\n He said the cost of a bag of rice across all 54 outlets in 2018 was stable and almost the same, however, the prices at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic varied significantly.<\/p>\n \u201cThe human factor in the variations in our prices during economic turmoil is pretty significant\u2026 With some outlets selling a 5kg of imported rice specifically Gino rice over GH\u00a2108. I took the pain to check last week and it is just GH\u00a263 somewhere in Accra.<\/p>\n \u201cWe look at the numbers, and we say that, what you need to think about is the hoarding effect and transportation effect,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The Bank of Ghana, in March 2022, raised the interest rate to a record 17 per cent, and to 19 per cent in May 2022 as part of measure to control the rising inflation.<\/p>\n Some economists are however of the view that increasing the policy rate will arrest inflation, and have warned that any further action in that regard will shrink the country\u2019s economy by way of limiting borrowing.<\/p>\n BY Jamila Akweley Okertchiri<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prof Samuel Annim, Govt Statistician) GOVERNMENT STATISTICIAN, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, has attributed the country\u2019s rising inflation to the fiscal rather than monetary policy. \u201cIf you want to resolve the inflation rate [issue] in Ghana, it\u2019s not a monetary policy argument. Thankfully, the Governor of the central bank has indicated that we should begin to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1062431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[227,5051,6416,587,157],"class_list":{"0":"post-1114624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-inflation","9":"tag-issue","10":"tag-monetary","11":"tag-policy","12":"tag-rising"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1114624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1114624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1114624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1114624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}