It’s a fact that external factors have negatively affected Ghana’s economy – UGBS Lecturer

External factors shave obviously impacted Ghana’s economy negatively, a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School Dr Patrick Asuming, has said.

Dr Asuming explained that when the prices of crude oil on the international market went up, it affected the prices of fuel in Ghana.

This, he said, he led to the upward trend in prices of good and services.

Contributing to a discussion on the rising rate of inflation in Ghana while speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday August 13, Dr Assuming said “When you look at the CPI basket, the local food items have more weight than the imported items. So even if we discounted that even for local items, we are seeing inflation of 31.9 per cent.

“So it is not trivial at all. Obviously, you cannot discount the the fact that external factors may have played the role. Earlier on in the year, a big chunk of the inflation we are seeing were coming from the fact that crude oil prices on the international market were going up significantly. What that meant was that fuel prices will go up, transport prices go up, but it doesn’t end there.

“All the things that we produce using fuel, it means the cost will go up. So we can’t say there hasn’t been the external factor. But I think the external impacts on our economy is exacerbated by the fact of how our economy is structured. That is that, we have built an economy that is so dependent on foreigners ie. we import things that we should be producing ourselves.”

He further expressed fears that high food prices are going to be with Ghanaians for long time due to the rising rate of inflation.

Inflation rate for the month of July 2022 was 31.7 per cent, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) announced on Wednesday August 10.

This is up from the 29.8 per cent recorded in June.

On year-on-year basis, the difference between Food inflation (32.3%) and Non-food (31.3%) was 1 percentage points.

On month-on-month basis, food inflation (3.3%) records a higher rate than non-food (3.0%), leading to 0.3 percentage point difference.

CPI-July-2022_Rev-1Download

The percentage point increase in Non-food inflation (2.1) between June and July 2022 is higher than food inflation (1.6).

The percentage point difference between inflation for imported items (33.9%) and locally domestic items (30.9%) was 3%.

Dr Asuming said “the high inflation is going to stay with is for a while, we all have to accept the highest inflation in the region we are seeing is going to be with us for sometime.”

He stressed “Ghanaians must condition their minds that food prices are not going to come down any time soon.”

Source: Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana