Economist, Dr Sa-ad Iddrisu, in a social media post is asking the government to blame its mismanagement and corruption for the woes of the economy and not Russia-Ukraine war.
According to Dr Iddrisu, “The rate at which prices are increasing in the country is becoming alarming. An item sold for 100ghc today can be sold for 250ghc in less than three days’ time. This is beyond what the average citizen can bear as salaries had only seen a meagre 4% increase since July 2021.”
“In 2016, a 50kg bag of rice cost 150ghc. With your salary as 2500ghc, you could have bought 16 bags. By Sept – Oct 2022, with the price being 800ghc, you can only buy 3 bags of the same rice. Thus, a price increase of 433%.Again in 2016, a gallon of cooking oil cost 90ghc. Today, it’s costing 1000ghc, representing a 1011% increase in price”, he said.
He added that “A bag of cement which cost 28ghc in 2016, is now costing 80ghc. Another price increase of 185.7%. The list goes on and on with astronomical increases in prices of items, of which the government seems unconcerned about. No government should watch its citizens suffer in hardships whilst it does very little to ameliorate the situation.”
Dr Iddrisu, also added, “Many African countries are not badly hit with rising inflation like Ghana due to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
To this effect, he said “Government should not blame all of the country’s woes on the Russia-Ukraine war, but on government’s own mismanagement and corruption.”
Dr Sa-ad Iddrisu is a Ghanaian-born economist based in the United States of America. He has over the years been extremely vocal on the state of the Ghanaian economy and has made several policy recommendations in the past.
