Create a Price and Income Board to help stabilise prices of goods-Spio-Garbrah to government

Former Trade and Industry Minister, Ekow Spio-Garbrah has called for the creation of a Price and Income Board to help stabilise prices of goods as the cedi makes gains.

Speaking to Joy Business at the funeral of Ghana’s longest serving Finance Minister, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, Mr. Spio-Garbrah bemoaned the rate at which prices of goods are sky rocketing describing it as disappointing.

According to him, a Price and Income Board is key to stabilizing inflation and ease the high cost of living on Ghanaians.

“The inflation rate now is over 50 percent and we still have prices of goods going high every now and then. We use to have the Price and Income Board which was key to the economy so what prevent us from bringing it back. We have to learn from countries like Tunisia and most of the North African countries with stable prices. We need a more regulated environment to save this economy”, he said.

Mr. Spio-Garbrah further criticized the Bank of Ghana over the unstable exchange rate regime.

He said the central bank should come clean with the current happenings in the market.

“The real value of the cedi is how much it cost you to buy a dollar so we have to stop the artificial differences we are hearing that indicate that we get a dollar with ₵8 or ₵9, that’s not the truth. Ghana is a bankrupt country and we have to change our behavior towards economic issues”

The Ghana Cedi ended 2022 as the second weakest currency on the African continent with a year-to-date loss of 38.86% to the US dollar, according to Bloomberg.

Globally, the local currency placed 145th. The Sierra Leone Leone came 146th whilst the Argentina Peso and Sierra Lankan Rupee placed 147th and 148th respectively