Data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed that food items, fuel, and transportation fares are major contributors to inflation in 2024.
Simone Tichutab, a data scientist at GSS, highlighted that 13 of the top 15 items driving inflation are food-related.
He stressed the importance of bridging the gap between farm gate prices and market costs as a strategy to control inflation.
Mr. Tichutab also urged for greater collaboration to stabilize prices and foster economic growth.
“You have a lot of processed food like yam, fresh tomatoes also featuring in there. So it may be a multi-approach in addressing some of these issues. And in my view, I sincerely believe that if we really want to tackle inflation and given the fact that we are having 13 food items featuring, we need to look at our food basket as a country.
Are we producing enough? And what we are producing? What is the gap between the farm gate? And what happened transmitting this food price from the farms into the market? So we need to have a broader stakeholder consultation to see how each ministry involves so far as this food price to see how each ministry involves so far as this food price monitoring is concerned to see how we can drive that inflation. “
He revealed that smoked herring soared by 400 per cent in 6 years.
He urged the government to improve its buffer stock regime to address price hikes that occurred by seasonality.
“If you pick the median price for how many per kilogram in 2018 against the median price of herring in 2024, December you realize that the percentage change in the price of herring is over 400%. So what it means is that the price of herring may have gone up by 4 times. Starting lower per kg of a 25 cities and ending the year 2024 by about over a 100 cedis per kilogram for money. And this tells us maybe maybe influenced by the taste and preferences of Ghanaians.
So for example, if I pick yam, yam belong to a division of food and non alcoholic beverages. And if I even divide that into groups, it will belong to the food group. So you realize that over the period, yam is actually driving inflation in the food category. And if you look at it, it is playing a role.
So it means that in the basket of the division where yam belongs, it is really contributing significantly to the price changes we are seeing in that particular suburb. So what are we doing as a country to address these seasonal issues and say that maybe in areas where we have bumper harvest, we are good to have buffer stocks where we can keep some of this seasonal food.
So that till we actually don’t have higher harvest, we are good to release these foods to ease the prices on price of some of these food items. “
