Just when the world thought it had a break from coronavirus, and to an extent had accepted that COVID-19 is here to stay, the Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, is generating anxiety that is biting hard on economies across the world.
No country is immune from the effect of the Russia-Ukraine war, as inflation, especially food inflation in many countries are hitting double digits.
Ghana is no exception, before the invasion, inflation in Ghana was 15.7percent, which was primarily as the result of Covid-19, had jumped to 23.4percent by the end of April. The figure means that the rate rose 4.2 per centage points higher than the 19.4 per cent recorded in March 2022.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service, Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation however, decreased from 51.4 per cent in March 2022 to 50.0 per cent in April 2022.
Overall month-on-month food inflation was 5.8 per cent, which is higher than both the 12 month national month-on-month rolling average of food inflation (2.0 per cent) and the rate recorded for April 2021 (2.3 per cent).
The above statistics means that, food is the component that is pushing the rate of Inflation, above the reach of many average Ghanaians.
Every problem is an opportunity waiting to be exploited. Ghana and indeed Africa is faced with the unique opportunity to cease the moment and improve on domestic production of food.
In the considered opinion of this newspaper, this is the time to push for the idea of producing what we eat and eat what we produce.
As a continent and country, we cannot continue to bear the brunt of decisions and actions we were not consulted on and for which we don’t stand to benefit.
At the just ended 57th Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank and the 48th Annual Meeting of the African Development Fund, which was hosted by Ghana, speeches and pledges were made, but what has always been lacking is action to follow through with whatever is agreed on.
We have favourable weather and soil to produce enough to feed our people. To always be catching cold when the West sneezes, should become in the opinion of this newspaper, a thing of the past.
The war in Ukraine, has pushed Africa to the wall, the time to think outside the box is now.
