Following the announcement that Ghana’s inflation rate has dropped to 9.4%, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi and Ranking Member on Parliament’s Economy and Development Committee, has urged the government to turn its focus to tackling the persistent rise in food prices.
Many analysts have indicated that food inflation remains a major threat to household welfare despite overall economic gains.
According to the legislator, while the recent data shows that imported inflation, the cost of foreign goods, has been successfully contained, domestic inflation, particularly on locally produced goods and food, remains high due to structural bottlenecks that continue to push prices up.
He further observed that although both non-food and food inflation are on a downward trajectory, food inflation is still relatively high above non-food inflation.
The reasons he gives for the relatively high food inflation include bottlenecks in the access to fertilizers, fuel, land preparation, transportation, storage, and the margins that market queens put on goods.”
“If you also look at it from food and non-food, you’ll find out that food inflation has not gone down as much as non-food inflation. The reason is that the things that cause food inflation, so how farmers get inputs, fertilizers, fuel, preparing their land, transportation of food items, the margins that market queens putting on and storage problems, all of those ones have still not been solved, so food is still not taming as quickly as non-food inflation is taming,” he remarked.
He further recognized that despite the seasonal glut, the seasonal factors alone cannot account for the slow pace of decline in food prices, stressing that systemic inefficiencies along the food value chain must be urgently addressed if the benefits of falling inflation are to reach ordinary consumers.
The ranking member on the economy and development committee of parliament proposed a two-pronged strategy to sustain the fight against rising costs, support local manufacturing, and implement practical interventions in agriculture and food distribution.
On the food front, he called for targeted policies to address challenges in farm input supply, transportation, and storage, arguing that inefficiencies in these areas cause unnecessary price spikes even when supply is adequate.
He added, “I think generally what all governments have to do, not just about NDC government, but all governments, is to ensure that, for example, on the domestic side, locally manufactured goods, support is given to industry. Are they getting cheaper electricity? Is labor cost cheaper? Are raw materials cheaper? so that the final product will be cheaper, so that you and I, who are buying, prices will not be rising that much.”
Economists have welcomed the overall dip in inflation, describing it as a sign of improving macroeconomic stability. However, analysts also caution that high food prices continue to erode consumer purchasing power, particularly for low-income households.
The former Minister under the erstwhile NPP administration’s remarks underscore the need for shifting the national conversation from celebrating single-digit inflation to ensuring that the cost of basic food items like maize, rice, and tomatoes truly reflects the macroeconomic gains.
