{"id":1183428,"date":"2022-08-18T23:13:07","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T23:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/18\/if-bog-had-not-intervened-inflation-would-have-been-100-head-of-ugs-economics-dept\/"},"modified":"2022-08-18T23:13:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T23:13:07","slug":"if-bog-had-not-intervened-inflation-would-have-been-100-head-of-ugs-economics-dept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/18\/if-bog-had-not-intervened-inflation-would-have-been-100-head-of-ugs-economics-dept\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;If BoG had not intervened inflation would have been 100%&#8217; &#8211;\u00a0 Head of UG&#8217;s Economics Dept."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-text\" style=\"line-height: 2; letter-spacing: -0.5px;font-size: 18px;\">\n<p>                        <!--p class=\"ky_saved_articles_link\"><span class=\"ky_saved_articles_hide\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" class=\"ky_saved_articles_img\" alt=\"'If BoG had not intervened inflation would have been 100%' -  Head of UG's Economics Dept.\" title=\"'If BoG had not intervened inflation would have been 100%' -  Head of UG's Economics Dept.\"><\/span> Bookmark<\/p-->\n<p>Head of Economics Department at the University of Ghana, William Baah-Boateng has commended the Bank of Ghana (BoG) for its swift approach to increase the policy rate by 300 basis points to 22%, after an Emergency Monetary Policy Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview on <strong>JoyNews\u2019 Business Edition of PM Express<\/strong>, Dr. Baah-Boateng indicated that had the BoG not intervened, the country\u2019s inflation rate would have been 100%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn economics, there is something we call counterfactual so if the problem is coming and they don\u2019t even step in at all, perhaps we would have been in the 100\u2019s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"KhEGeZMqF5M\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"If BOG had not intervened inflation would have been in 100s -\u00a0 William Baah-Boateng\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KhEGeZMqF5M?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Currently, year-on-year inflation shot up to 31% in July 2022, latest data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Baah-Boateng\u2019s comments are in relation to the decision by the Bank of Ghana to increase the policy rate by 300 basis points to 22%, after an Emergency Monetary Policy Committee meeting on August 17, 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The move is part of measures to address the risks to the inflation outlook.<\/p>\n<p>However, the cost of borrowing is expected to go up significantly, and consequently, increase cost of living and doing business.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-myjoyonline-com wp-block-embed-myjoyonline-com\"\/>\n<p>In the meantime, a Partner at Deloitte Ghana, Yaw Lartey has expressed worry about the increased policy rate, saying it will not address the rising inflation rate, but rather shoot up cost of borrowing.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, though the monetary policy rate historically has helped to manage inflation, the current economic situation proves otherwise<\/p>\n<p>Dr Baah-Boateng, in response, stated that, since the measures have been implemented \u201cand we are here, it will be very difficult for you to measure whether indeed the policy is not working.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-myjoyonline-com wp-block-embed-myjoyonline-com\"\/>\n<p>For this reason, he urged that comments that the policy is not working should be put in perspective.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that fiscal policy and monetary policy are supposed to play complementary roles, adding that both cannot stand alone therefore there is a need to observe where the inflation is coming from.<\/p>\n<p>He observed that the inflation is coming from the supply side therefore Central bank has no role to play.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the exchange rate is the bigger issue driving inflation in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can look at inflation from January to now the moment the exchange rate depreciates, you know it reflects on fuel prices, fuel prices become cost push. So it means that there is some kind of demand element there moving into supply and therefore you cannot have the fiscal and monetary standing alone, they need to play a complementary role,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n<p>                <!-- Post Tags --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Head of Economics Department at the University of Ghana, William Baah-Boateng has commended the Bank of Ghana (BoG) for its swift approach to increase the policy rate by 300 basis points to 22%, after an Emergency Monetary Policy Committee. Speaking in an interview on JoyNews\u2019 Business Edition of PM Express, Dr. Baah-Boateng indicated that had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[1084,16648,3175,227,14395,22972],"class_list":["post-1183428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-bog","tag-dept","tag-economics","tag-inflation","tag-intervened","tag-ugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183428","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=1183428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}