Agricultural Policy Consultant, Emmanuel Wullingdool, has indicated that the food inflation figures being recorded by the country in recent times have exposed the weakness of the Country’s Agricultural policies meant to increase food production.
According to him, there was a need for the government to revamp the Agricultural sector by creating access to water for farmers, introducing modern methods of farming rather than the use of the hoe, helping farmers with farm inputs at a lower cost, and making available a ready market for farmers.
This, the Consultant noted, would increase the food basket of the country and reduce the pressure on the economy.
He made this revelation when he was speaking on A1 radio’s Day Break Upper East show with Mark Smith on the review of the 2023 mid-year review budget.
The year-on-year inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Pricing Index (CPI) stood at 42.5% as of June 2023, while food inflation stood at 54.2% from 51.8% as of May 2023.
To the Consultant, this was a clear indication that the government’s flagship program, dubbed “Planting for Food and Jobs”, has not yielded the needed results as intended, and there was a need for it to be considered in the mid-year budget to address farmers’ concerns.
A financial analyst at Delax Finance, Mr. Alhassan Mutawakillu, has also called on the government to take the opportunity in the mid-year review budget to review some of its flagship programs, cut down on expenditure, and ensure debt sustainability.
The financial analyst bewailed that the government was not committed to cutting down on expenditure despite the country’s debt level, yet offered an exorbitant rate for people coming in for treasury bills, which he explained would have dire consequences for the economy going forward.
He said it was highly impossible for the country to beat down its inflation of 42.5% to meet the ECOWAS average inflation target of 13.9% at the end of the year, and this was another reason the government should stop borrowing at the local market.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Gilbert Azeem Tiroog|Ghana
